Mixing business, terror on campaign trail

Washington : Donald Trump patted himself on the back for being right about "radical Islamic terrorism." Hillary Clinton said she would be happy to use the forbidden phrase. She and the man in the White House they both want to replace said they got Osama Bin Laden without calling him any names.

The would-be Republican standard bearer was the first to inject politics into tragedy with a twitter message hours after a son of immigrant parents from Afghanistan massacred 49 people in cold blood in a gay night club in Orlando in the early hours of June 12, in the worst mass shooting in American history.

Goaded by Trump, "Crooked Hillary," as he calls his Democratic rival, insisted she's not afraid to say "radical" Islam. "It mattered we got bin Laden, not what name we called him." "I have clearly said we -- whether you call it radical jihadism or radical Islamism, I'm happy to say either,” said the former Secretary of State in a clear break from her rival turned boss for four years.

Trump upped the ante a day later in suggesting to Fox News that "People cannot, they cannot believe that President Obama is acting the way he acts and can't even mention the words 'radical Islamic terrorism.' There's something going on." Trump declared he was open to banning the sale of firearms to people on terrorist watch or no fly lists and said he would speak to the "wonderful" people at the National Rifle Association (NRA), the powerful gun lobby that has endorsed him.

Put in a quandary by Trump, the Republicans who are opposed to any gun control, agreed to vote in the Senate on Monday on four competing gun control measures, but nothing is likely to come out of it with the two parties expected to revert to their old positions. Meanwhile, defying new polls showing his unfavorability hitting a record 70 per cent, Trump bluntly told top Republican leaders criticising his style: "Don't talk. Please be quiet" and warning if they don't fall in line, he would go it alone.

"You can't make this up sometimes," said a taken aback House Speaker Paul Ryan but demurred about revoking his endorsement of the nominee despite their yawning differences. "That's not my plan." And to those who still hadn't got the memo, said an unfazed Trump: "We have to have our Republicans either stick together or let me just do it by myself" -- "Ekla chalo re" a la Tagore - pundits, press and the party be damned.

By Arun Kumar