Republican US presidential candidate Donald Trump addresses The Faith and Freedom Coalition's 'Road To Majority' conference in Washington, US, June 10, 2016. PHOTO: REUTERS
Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee for president, told CNN he thought Orlando nightclub shooter Omar Mateen was known to people in the Muslim community as someone with a potential for violence.
The presumptive Republican nominee, urged the monitoring of mosques in the United States and reiterated his calls for a temporary ban on Muslims entering the country.
Trump says Florida massacre proves he's right on Islamist threat
"You will find that many people that knew him felt that he was a whack job ... (that) something like this would have happened," Trump told CNN in a phone interview.
"People that knew him, the ex-wife, other people. They don't report them. For some reason the Muslim community does not report people like this."
Trump said the United States needed better intelligence-gathering to prevent such things from happening.
"We have to look at the mosques ... and we have to look at the community," he said. "And believe me, the community knows the people that have the potential to blow up."
Trump plans to deliver a speech on national security at 2 pm EDT on Monday in New Hampshire. The topic was a change from his earlier plans to criticize Clinton and what he said was her scandal-prone past.
US must not demonize Muslims: Clinton
Meanwhile, democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, speaking on Monday, said the United States must find a way to keep the country safe without demonising Muslim Americans.
Clinton called for "statesmanship, not partisanship" in the aftermath of the shooting in Orlando.
US Muslim leader condemns Orlando attack, slams extremists
Clinton, in several television interviews, said she would support stronger measures to prevent so-called lone wolf attacks and urged closer internet monitoring. She said she was committed to protecting the rights of Muslim Americans at the same time.
"We cannot demonize, demagogue and declare war on an entire religion. That is just dangerous," Clinton said on the MSNBC network.
She also called for steps to prevent people who are on the US no-fly list from purchasing guns and said possible restrictions on assault weapons needed to be part of the debate.
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