The San Bernardino terror attack is still coming up on the presidential campaign trail.
While discussing his plan for “extreme vetting” of immigrants to make sure they share American values, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump referred to the Dec. 2 attack by a couple that killed 14 and injured 22 in what was the worst Islamic extremist attack on U.S. soil since 9/11.
Trump reportedly mentioned a report following the attack that a neighbor of shooters Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik “saw suspicious behavior—bombs on the floor and other things—but didn’t want to warn authorities because they said they didn’t want to be accused of racial profiling.”
The online magazine Slate took issue with Trump’s remarks. From Slate:
Fact checkers at the Annenberg Public Policy Center looked into the assertion shortly after Trump made it during an appearance on Fox and Friends in mid-June and concluded:
There is also no evidence for Trump’s repeated claim that ‘many people’ including neighbors of the San Bernardino shooters saw ‘bombs all over the floor’ of the apartment, but did not report it to authorities because of politically correct concerns about racial profiling.
Politifact came to a similar conclusion way back in January when Chris Christie made a similar claim during a GOP debate:
We looked for any reports of the neighbors saying they had an inkling of any plans for an attack. We didn’t find any. We did find second-hand reports that weren’t well sourced, and these were repeated primarily on right-leaning news websites. … We rate this statement False.
Attacks like the San Bernardino and Orlando mass shootings have given impetus to Trump’s “Make America Safe Again” platform which calls for increased border security and tight immigration patrols.
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has denounced Trump’s security plan, calling it xenophobic and ineffective in the war on terror.
Trump also referred to San Bernardino during his speech accepting the GOP nomination at the Republican National Convention last month. Going over a list of mass shootings and terror attacks, Trump referred to those killed "at an office party in San Bernardino."