Predict whether or not Trump gets any sort of bump from the events in Orlando. [View all]

[Tommy_Carcetti]

Usually, if anything can get spun to the terrorism angle, Republicans will attempt to appeal to people's lizard brains and insist they are the ones who can keep the country strong. It harkens back to the days of September 11th where they capitalized on the concept, that they were the patriotic party to keep us all safe.

So that being said, will Donald Trump get anything out of Orlando at all?

I'm going to go out on a limb and say no, nothing palatable.

First of all, as facts emerge, it appears that what happened in Orlando wasn't necessarily straight Islamic extremist terror but rather a more murky situation where the shooter had a myriad of possible motives, including that he may have been ashamed of his own closeted gay identity and how it conflicted with his staunch religious upbringing. So it's not really the classic terrorist narrative that the Republicans are trying to bank on.

But specifically as it relates to Trump, his post-shooting remarks were so poorly received, including by his own party, and revealed him to be a bumbling idiot. Claiming the shooter was "born in Afghan" and going off on tangents such as Syrian refugees hardly shows he has any sort of an informed take on the situation. And compared to both President Obama and Hillary Clinton, he looks especially inept and out of his league.