Clinton on combatting terror: “I know how to do this”

The campaigns weighed in after the bomb incidents and a stabbing attack at a mall in central Minnesota.

“This should steel our resolve to protect our country and defeat ISIS and other terrorist groups”, said Clinton, whose lead in the polls has recently taken a dip, condemning what she called “apparent terrorist attacks”. “I get that. And I want to do my best to answer those questions”, she told several hundred students gathered in an ornate, wood-paneled lecture hall. Authorities had said earlier they wanted to question Ahmad Khan Rahami, a 28-year-old naturalized US citizen, about the Chelsea and Seaside Park bombings.

“Her attacks on me are all meant to deflect from her record of unleashing this monster of evil on us and on the world”, said Trump at a packed Florida rally, referring to Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state. Officials in NY and New Jersey said Sunday they were still investigating who was behind the explosions and what the motivation was, while the Minnesota attack was being investigated as a possible act of terrorism.

Clinton and her team see her experience and what they say is her steady judgment as key selling points for her candidacy. On the campaign trail, she frequently invokes her role in the 2011 raid that killed Osama bin Laden, describing to voters the tense atmosphere in the White House alongside President Barack Obama.

While Trump responded to the fears of Americans, Clinton issued a call to their intellect.

“I must tell you that just before I got off the plane a bomb went off in NY and nobody knows what’s going on”, Trump said.

On Monday, he hit hard on those points, calling for tougher policing, including profiling foreigners who look like they could have connections to terrorism or certain Mideastern nations.

Trump seized on a government report that said 858 immigrants from countries with which the United States has national security concerns who were pegged for deportation were mistakenly granted citizenship.

“I am absolutely in favor of and have always been an advocate for tough vetting for making sure that we don’t let people into this country, and not just people who come here to settle, but we need a better visa system”, Clinton said. His campaign declined to say whether it came from a national security briefing.

With world leaders gathered in NY for the United Nations conclave, Clinton was expected to meet leaders of Japan, Egypt and Ukraine later on Monday, while Trump was expected to meet Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.

“Let’s not get diverted and distracted by the kind of campaign rhetoric coming from the otehr side”, she said. “We’re going to go after the bad guys and get them but we’re not going to go after an entire religion”, she said during a press conference.

At an invitation-only event at Temple University, she acknowledged that she needs to do more to get millennials on board.

“We know that a lot of the rhetoric we’ve heard from Donald Trump has been seized on by terrorists, in particular ISIS, because they are looking to make this into a war against Islam rather than a war against jihadists”, she told reporters in White Plains, New York.

NY went on alert, deploying almost 1,000 extra state police and National Guardsmen to airports, bus terminals and subway stations as the city prepared to host world leaders at the UN General Assembly from Monday. However, Clinton also referred to the attack, along with one in New Jersey on Monday, as “bombings” that same evening, and both candidates were correct in their remarks. Trump and his allies spent Sunday – repeatedly and falsely – accusing Clinton of pushing the idea that President Barack Obama was not born in the US – a conspiracy theory long championed by Trump himself.

Clinton, meanwhile, is still facing questions about her health and openness after a video caught her staggering after abruptly leaving a 9/11 ceremony.