Tuesday, March 29, 2016

Hillary Clinton was last presidential candidate to tweet about Pakistan suicide bombing

When Hillary Clinton ran for president in 2008, she released an ad claiming she would answer the phone in the White House if it rang at 3 AM, but on Easter Sunday she was the very last presidential candidate to tweet about a deadly suicide bombing in Lahore, Pakistan.

Over 300 were injured and at least 72 killed by the blast in the section of Gulshan-i-Iqbal park "which houses swings, train and some other attractions for children," the AFP reports. The attack occurred Sunday night in Pakistan, but their time is 9 hours ahead of Eastern Standard Time, so it was the early afternoon in the United States.

Ohio Governor John Kasich was the first presidential candidate to tweet about the bombing, at 2:10 PM EST. "Let us remember the victims ... as we gather strength and resolve to defeat all who threaten our values," tweeted Kasich, who is trailing far back in third place in the GOP primary race. He also linked to a statement on the attack, condemning the "cowardly mass execution of innocent women and children, reportedly including Christian families" as "an outrage."

Nearly an hour later, Clinton's lone-standing rival in the Democratic primaries, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders tweeted, "We are grieving today for the families affected by the deplorable attack in Lahore. No one should ever fear taking their children to a park."

Donald Trump didn't address the attack on Twitter until 4:37 PM, even though he did tweet an Easter greeting at 3:41 PM. "Another radical Islamic attack, this time in Pakistan, targeting Christian women & children," Trump tweeted. "At least 67 dead, 400 injured."

"I alone can solve," Trump added, but he didn't make another tweet about it, explaining how he "alone" could "solve" suicide bombing attacks across the world.

Republican Texas Sen. Ted Cruz didn't tweet about the attack until 7:25 PM. "The evil that is radical Islamism struck in Pakistan today in a shocking display of savagery," Cruz wrote, with a link to a statement posted at his campaign website. But that was not until after his twitter account sought volunteers for the #CruzCrew, in a tweet that included a screenshot from a Fox News Poll that claimed Republicans had a higher opinion of him than Trump and Kasich.

Hillary Clinton's official Twitter account tweeted three times after Kasich and Sanders first responded to the attack, but it didn't mention the bombing until after midnight, at 12:27 AM. "My prayers are with the victims of the horrific Easter Day attack in Lahore," the former Secretary of State tweeted. "Pakistan and all nations must confront & defeat terrorists." It included an H, indicating that it was a quote from the current Democratic presidential front-runner herself.

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