US presidential candidate Donald J. Trump on Monday accused US President Barack Obama and his rival Hillary Clinton of failing to understand the nature of the terrorist threat facing the country, a day after the biggest massacre in the history of the country left 49 people dead.
Trump also appeared to suggest that Obama might be complicit in such attacks.
"We're led by a man that either is not tough, not smart, or he's got something else in mind," Trump said. "There is something going on," the New York Times quoted Trump as saying.
Trump also accused the president of coddling terrorists overseas and being overly concerned with collateral damage.
"Can you imagine General Patton saying 'Please get out of your trucks because we're going to start dropping bombs in one hour?'" said Trump. "This is the way we fight. We're led by a fool."
Taking on his rival Clinton, Trump suggested that she was "too weak to keep the country safe", while Clinton warned that Trump's demonisation of Muslims was inciting terrorists.
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Trump called for increased bombing of Islamic State (IS) terrorists, accusing American Muslims of looking the other way as attacks unfolded.
He condemned Clinton for failing to use the phrase "radical Islamic terrorism". They were the first remarks by Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, since the massacre on Sunday in Orlando.
Clinton, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, initially offered a measured response and a call for unity before warning that Trump's policies were part of the problem. She also said that the threat of terrorism was not a matter of language and that she had no problem using the term "radical Islamism" in an interview on CNN.
The worst attack on American soil since Sept. 11, 2001 occurred on Sunday morning at a gay nightclub in Orlando, where a gunman identified as Omar Mateen, killed 49 people and wounded 53.
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