Hillary Clinton says GOP approach to combating terrorism makes America less safe

Reporting from Washington —  Just hours before the GOP presidential debate Tuesday, Hillary Clinton got out in front of the Republican contenders with a forceful speech ridiculing their approach to terrorism and warning that some of the very slogans they have been using to tout their national security plans are making Americans less safe.

At a time voter attention has shifted from the economy to personal safety and the threat of terrorist attacks, Clinton used the speech in Minnesota to cast herself as the steady, experienced hand in a presidential race otherwise dominated by what she characterized as dangerous blowhards.

“Promising to carpet-bomb until the desert glows doesn’t make you sound strong,” Clinton said, referring to a vow made by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas). “It makes you sound like you are in over your head.”

She also delivered a rebuttal to some of the more incendiary remarks made by the GOP front-runner, Donald Trump.

“Bluster and bigotry are not credentials for becoming commander in chief,” Clinton said.

Clinton characterized the Republican plan for fighting Islamic State militants as having little substance. But she also seemed to be testing a slogan of her own in this new phase of the campaign, in which the issue of terrorism is overriding all others.

“We elect a president in part, in large part, to keep us safe,” Clinton said.

As she has in the past, Clinton argued that Trump — who has called to ban all foreign Muslims from entering the United States — is not an outlier in the GOP field.

“The truth is many of those candidates have also said disgraceful things about Muslims,” she said. “This kind of divisive rhetoric actually plays into the hands of terrorists.... It alienates partners and isolates moderates we need around the world.”

Clinton referred to the comments made by some in the Republican Party as “offensive, inflammatory, hateful anti-Muslim rhetoric.”

And she mocked the calls Republicans have made to put together international coalitions to fight Islamic State, saying that, as a former secretary of State, she knows how to build a coalition.

“I know how hard it is because I have done it,” Clinton said. “Insulting potential allies doesn’t make it any easier.... [It] feeds a narrative jihadists use to recruit new followers around the world, that the United States is at war with Islam.”

While the speech at the University of Minnesota at times could have been mistaken for a political rally, it was also a major policy address for Clinton, where she laid out key planks of her agenda for fighting terrorism. She said that the San Bernardino terrorist attack underscored the urgency and that its randomness “made us all feel it could have been anywhere, and any time.”

Clinton repeated her call on Silicon Valley to get more engaged in the fight, putting tech executives on notice that she will not stand for their continued refusal to help law enforcement develop tools that would allow the monitoring of encrypted smartphones, which are increasingly believed to be a tool favored by attackers.

“American innovation is a powerful force, and we need to put it to work defeating ISIS,” Clinton said, using another term for Islamic State. “Our security professionals need to more effectively track and analyze ISIS social media posts and track jihadist networks…. We need to step up our game.”

Government agencies and tech firms, Clinton said, “should work together to develop a unified national strategy to defeat ISIS in cyberspace.”

Her plan also called for tougher vetting of visa applications for people seeking entry into the United States who have traveled in the last five years to a country facing serious problems with terrorism, but she rebuked Republicans for their proposals to ban Syrian refugees from entering the United States.

“Applying a religious test that discriminates against Muslims, slamming the door on every single Syrian refugee, that is not who we are as Americans,” Clinton said. “We are better than that.”

Clinton also continued to push for stricter gun control.

Republican candidates “will say guns are a totally separate issue that has nothing to do with terrorism,” she said. “I’ve got news for them. Terrorists use guns to kill Americans, and I think we should make it a lot harder for them to do that.”

evan.halper@latimes.com

Twitter: @evanhalper