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Clinton: Trump's call for torture helps ISIS

Republican front-runner Donald Trump strengthens the Islamic State with his calls to torture terrorist suspects and proposals to prevent Muslims from entering the United States, Hillary Clinton charged Monday.

Republican front-runner Donald Trump strengthens the Islamic State with his calls to torture terrorist suspects and proposals to prevent Muslims from entering the United States, Hillary Clinton charged Monday.

"His comments are actually used by terrorist groups to recruit," Clinton said in a conference call with the Inquirer Editorial Board and reporters. She said that Trump needs to be "rejected and repudiated at every turn."

As president, Trump would make the world more dangerous, Clinton said, citing his suggestions that NATO be broken up and that Japan and South Korea be allowed to obtain nuclear weapons to defend themselves.

"That upends our whole bipartisan policy to try to keep the world safer from the proliferation of nuclear weapons," Clinton said during the 45-minute discussion. The former secretary of state is the leading candidate for the Democratic nomination for president.

Clinton has made a connection between Trump and terrorist propaganda before, notably in a December Democratic debate, when fact-checkers found no direct evidence that his words were being used as a recruiting tool. Clinton has said she meant that Trump's inflammatory statements about Muslims, broadcast widely in the Arab world, play into ISIS's hands.

Trump's campaign declined to comment on Clinton's remarks Monday. Previously, he has said that she has no proof that ISIS is using his words and that she owes him an apology.

Clinton answered the newspaper's questions Monday as she was campaigning in New York state to hold back a challenge from Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont that has lasted deeper into the primary season than many had projected. New York, which Clinton represented in the Senate for eight years, holds its primary next Tuesday.

A Monmouth (N.J.) University poll released Monday shows Clinton leading Sanders by 51 percent to 39 percent among likely primary voters in New York.

Pennsylvania's primary is in two weeks, on April 26.

Clinton also revisited an issue that flared last week as the Democratic rivals campaigned in Philadelphia: Whether either is unqualified to be president.

"Sen. Sanders is finding himself being asked really tough questions, and I think he is having a very tough time answering those questions," she said Monday. "So he first said I wasn't qualified, now he's moved on to my judgment, I don't know what it's going to be tomorrow.

"But here's what I think: He's facing the tougher questioning here in New York and I assume in Pennsylvania. And he's first the first time being shown to be unable to respond to basic questions about his own core message ... about breaking up the banks, or basic questions on foreign policy, so instead he's lashing out at me. I think voters will see through that."

And she had tough words for Trump's chief Republican rival, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, saying he had inflamed tensions and made counterterrorism more difficult by calling for profiling of U.S. Muslims and special police patrols in their neighborhoods.

"We need to present a united front, and we need to get information from every place we can," she said.

Clinton would not budge when asked why she does not disclose transcripts or recordings of paid speeches she has made to Goldman Sachs and other Wall Street firms and special interests, typically for $225,000 per speech. She said she should not have to disclose those talks when other presidential candidates, including Trump, are not held to the same standard of openness.

Sanders should release his tax returns, Clinton said, noting that she has eight years of returns available on her campaign website.

"When people release transcripts of speeches they gave, I will release mine," she said. "But in the meantime, I want to see their tax returns."

Sanders was asked about that Sunday on NBC's Meet the Press, and promised to disclose more of his returns. He has put out a summary page from his 2014 federal tax filing, but not the entire thing.

Clinton told the journalists there is "absolutely no evidence" that she has ever made a decision or taken an official action as a result of either speech fees or campaign donations from Wall Street or any other interests. Sanders has been attacking her ties to the financial industry as part of his challenge.

Elsewhere in the wide-ranging interview, Clinton, asked how she would break Washington's partisan logjam, cast herself as both a bridge-builder ("I will go anywhere and talk to anyone to find common ground. I did it as first lady, I did it as secretary of state and senator, and I will certainly do it as president"), and as a cheerleader for her party's candidates at the national and state levels.

She added a shout-out to Pennsylvania's embattled Democratic governor:

"I'm going to be clearly working for Senate candidates and I'm going to even be working for House candidates, governor candidates, and others, because I think it's going to be important to try to take back not just the Congress, but the state legislatures - like yours, which has proved to be such a blockade against Gov. Wolf's efforts."

Clinton said she had been tested and vetted on the national stage since she was first lady.

"They've been after me for 25 years and here I am, still standing," she said. "I believe there has been a concerted effort to tear me down, to attack me, to criticize me, and there certainly has been a double standard between me and others who have run."

tfitzgerald@phillynews.com

215-854-2718@tomfitzgerald

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