Trump chides Obama over response to Orlando shooting

         Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump lashed out at President Barack Obama on Monday over the shooting massacre in Orlando, Florida, at the hands of a gunman claiming allegiance to the Islamic State, saying it is possible Obama "doesn't want to see what's happening."

Trump, in a series of television interviews, questioned Obama's motivation and said he would never solve the national security problem.

"There are a lot of people that think maybe he doesn't want to get it," Trump said on NBC's "Today" program. "... I happen to think he just doesn't know what he's doing. But there are many people that think maybe he doesn't want to get it, maybe he doesn't want to see what's happening."

Trump also chided Obama in a Fox News interview, saying, "He doesn't get it or he gets it better than anybody understands. It's one or the other and neither one is acceptable."

© Steve Helber Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump gestures during a rally in Richmond, Va., Friday, June 10, 2016.

Trump has for years suggested that Obama is secretly a Muslim. In 2011, when Trump drew national attention for demanding Obama produce another copy of his birth certificate, he told Fox News, "maybe it says he is a Muslim." Obama is a practicing Christian.

"We're led by a man that either is not tough, not smart or he's got something else in mind," Trump said on Fox without being specific. "And the something else in mind. People can't believe it ... There's something going on. It's inconceivable."

A spokeswoman for Trump's campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment, nor did the White House.

Trump on Sunday had called for Obama to resign for not using the words "radical Islam" in his comments about the shooting. He also renewed his call for a temporary ban on Muslims entering the United States.

Omar Mateen, 29, the U.S.-born son of Afghan immigrants, armed with an assault rifle and pledging loyalty to militant group Islamic State, killed 49 people at a gay nightclub in Orlando early on Sunday in the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history.

Errol Louis, a political analyst with NY1 News, called Trump's comments a "baseless smear" akin to Trump's so-called birther accusations that Obama was not born in the United States, which has been refuted.

"It's baseless. It's not something that should be taken seriously or frankly even repeated," he told CNN.

Trump plans to deliver a speech on national security at 2 p.m. EDT (1800 GMT) on Monday in New Hampshire. The topic was a change from his earlier plan to criticize Democrat Hillary Clinton, his likely rival in the Nov. 8 presidential election, and what he said was her scandal-prone past.

"STATESMANSHIP, NOT PARTISANSHIP"

Clinton warned against demonizing Muslim Americans and called for "statesmanship, not partisanship" in the aftermath of the shooting.

The presumptive Democratic nominee, in several television interviews, also said she would support stronger measures to prevent so-called lone wolf attacks and urged closer internet monitoring. She said she was committed to protecting the rights of Muslim Americans at the same time.

"We cannot demonize, demagogue and declare war on an entire religion. That is just dangerous," Clinton said on the MSNBC network.

"Let's have a very clear rational discussion about what we do right and what we can improve on and how we're going to protect Americans, both from the threats of terrorism and ISIS ... and how we're going to try to save people's lives from the epidemic of gun violence."

Clinton also said the shooting renews the need to address gun control laws and called for steps to prevent people who are on the U.S. no-fly list from purchasing guns.

"Now that we're seeing terrorists use these assault weapons, that has to be part of the debate," she said

Trump said on CNN the United States needed better intelligence-gathering to prevent incidents such as the Orlando massacre

"We have to have a ban on people coming in from Syria and different parts of the world with this philosophy that is so hateful and so horrible," Trump said on "Good Morning America.