Hillary Clinton released a statement on Twitter late Thursday evening in response to the attack in Nice, France. (Getty)
A large truck plowed into a crowd gathered to watch Bastille Day fireworks in Nice, France, on Thursday in what the president of France called a terrorist attack. The driver first shot a gun into the crowd before driving two kilometers along the Promenade des Anglais.
Up to 77 people are feared dead and around 100 injured. The driver was shot and killed, according to CNN.
President Francois Hollande said, “We cannot deny that it was a terror attack,” in a national television address.
He added that the choice of Bastille Day, when France celebrates its post-French Revolution republic, was telling. Hollande said that the day is a “symbol of liberty.”
Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton took to Twitter to release a statement in the wake of the attack.
“Every American stands in strong solidarity with the people of France” —Hillary on the attack in Nice
In her statement, Clinton said:
Every American stands in strong solidarity with the people of France, and we say with one voice: we will not be intimidated. We will never allow terrorists to undermine the egalitarian and democratic values that underpin our very way of life. This cowardly attack only strengthens our commitment to our alliance and to defeating terrorism around the world.
Clinton also spoke to CNN’s Anderson Cooper in the wake of the attack, saying she is “sick at heart.”
Clinton said greater intelligence gathering, not military force, was necessary to fight against terrorist attacks.
She told Cooper:
We’re at war against radical jihadists who use Islam to recruit and radicalize others in order to pursue their evil agenda. It’s not so important what we call these people as what we do about them, and I think back to our success in getting (Osama) bin Laden, it was important that we built the case, we got the information and the President ordered the raid.
Clinton’s response was much different than that of presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump who said he’d ask for a declaration of war against ISIS .
Trump said, “This is war,” in an interview on Fox News Channel’s “The O’Reilly Factor.” He also said NATO should be used “for a purpose.”
Their responses again highlighted the stark differences in their stances on foreign policy.
