Hillary Clinton has issued a statement in response to incidents in Minnesota, New Jersey, and New York.
I strongly condemn the apparent terrorist attacks … ISIS has claimed responsibility for the attack in Minnesota, and this should steel our resolve to protect our country and defeat ISIS and other terrorist groups. I have laid out a comprehensive plan to do that. This includes launching an intelligence surge to help identify and thwart attacks before they are carried out, and to spot lone wolf attackers.
But Donald Trump isn’t worried about intelligence. Obviously. Trump is prepared to just sail right past the “comprehensive plan” idea and go straight to the knocking stage.
TRUMP: Well we’re going to have to do something extremely tough over there.
DOOCY: Like what?
TRUMP: Over there. Like, knock the hell out of them. And we have to get everybody together and we have to lead for a change because we’re not knocking them, we’re hitting them every once in a while, we’re hitting them in certain places, we’re being very gentle about it, we’re going to have to be very tough.
We’re hitting them “once in a while,” but we’re “not knocking them.” The United States-led coalition has dropped more than 50,000 bombs on ISIS, and has conducted over 15,000 air strikes on ISIS in Iraq and Syria. ISIS was blown out of the last city it controlled in Libya last month by a coalition of Libyan, U.S., and British forces. In Iraq, ISIS lost Fallujah in June and forces are gathering around their last stronghold in Mosul.
In Syria, U.S.-backed Kurdish militias took Manbij in August, cutting off supply lines for the increasingly isolated and shrinking ISIS territory. As with Mosul in Iraq, the de facto ISIS capital in Syria, Raqqa, is under pressure from all sides.
… Lt. Gen. Sean MacFarland, the top U.S. commander for the fight against IS, said this week that some 45,000 IS militants have been removed from the battlefield, reducing the group's total numbers to as few as 15,000.
What exactly does knocking look like?
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