(CNN)Donald Trump doesn't do nuance when it comes to terror attacks.
The global challenges he will face when he takes the oath of office in exactly one month came into greater focus Monday when terror shook Turkey, Germany and Switzerland. Trump's response to the day of carnage made clear his combative instincts on terrorism have not been tempered just because the election is over.
"Mr. Trump has made it very, very clear, he understands the threat that radical Islamic terrorism poses to our nation, and frankly to our friends and neighbors around the globe," Spicer said. "We have to be able to call it what it is and then root it out by the bottom," Spicer said, implicitly criticizing the Obama administration's response to terrorism, exemplified by more nuanced statements on Monday. Obama has frequently been criticized -- not just by Republicans -- for his sometimes cerebral initial response to attacks like the rampage in Paris that killed at least 130 people last year. Critics worried that his determination not to hand extremists a propaganda coup has not taken into account the fear stoked by such attacks among Americans. Republicans also accuse Obama of being slow to respond to a new wave of terrorism, sometimes orchestrated -- but more often inspired -- by ISIS using home grown radicalized Muslims.
Shift of tone
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But Trump's looming shift of tone could bring its own problems. "When (Trump) tweets before you get the Germans acknowledging what is happening in their own country -- I hope he is willing to accept foreign leaders when we get an event in the United States intervening to say what they think has happened here before he determines the facts," said Philip Mudd, a CNN counter-terrorism analyst who formerly worked at the FBI and CIA. "I think foreign officials are going to bristle at this." Paul Cruickshank, also a CNN terrorism analyst, said Tuesday on "New Day" that any US President's initial response was crucial after an attack -- and that Trump's outspoken instincts, which made him beloved among his supporters, could backfire. Trump's top Cabinet picks begin submitting documents to Senate "If you going have a President-elect or a President making calls and getting them wrong, that is going to damage the credibility of the United States internationally," Cruickshank said. There are also deeper reasons why Trump's blunt approach could store up problems for his own nascent administration. For one thing, he is already committing himself to a sweeping change -- and a potentially widened global war on terrorism. It remains unclear in practical terms how any global military assault that Trump appears to envision could eradicate every one of the lone perpetrators who appear to have carried out the attacks in Germany and Turkey. And Trump's emotive language -- evidenced by his statement on the Berlin attack in which he made distinctions between Christians and Muslims -- also stifles the consistent US policy in the 15 years since the September 11 attacks of avoiding the notion that America is at war with Islam. Radical Islamic groups hope to goad the US and its allies into such a rhetorical construct to gain legitimacy and spur recruitment. "Being tough is fine. George W. Bush was tough, but he had a different view about how to deal with American Muslims and the issues of Islam," Aaron David Miller, a former Middle East expert for Democratic and Republican presidents, said on "New Day." "There is a risk in creating the notion that this is somehow a civilizational war, that this is a war between the forces of Christianity, and Judaism and the West against Islam." He went on: "In large part, a civilizational war simply cannot be won. The reality is there probably isn't a comprehensive solution to this. We have to fight it smartly, and we have to be smart ourselves and not scare ourselves to death."
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Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2016/12/20/politics/donald-trump-terror-germanyturkey/index.html
Attacks spotlight Trump's tough tone on terror
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