PORTLAND — At a rally in Portland on Thursday, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump blasted his opponent, Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, saying she “can never be trusted” with national security and calling her “a disaster.”

“Thousands are being looked at and studied (for terrorism activity), and she wants to allow 550 percent more (refugees) than Obama’s allowing coming into the country. Hillary Clinton, furthermore, can never be trusted with national security,” Trump said to a crowd of 1,600 at Portland’s Merrill Auditorium regarding his opponent’s proposal to allow 65,000 Syrian refugees seek asylum in the United States.

“We admit hundreds of thousands of refugees, and they’re coming from among the most dangerous territories and countries in the world, a practice that has to stop,” Trump said in an hour-long speech focusing primarily on national security.

“The most important issues facing civilization right now is radical, Islamic terrorism, and we have a president that won’t use the term,” he said.

Trump referenced Maine’s struggle with handling incoming Somali refugees, many of whom have sought asylum in Lewiston and Portland. He called for an end to their admission into the U.S. because, he said, they could potentially be terrorists in disguise.

“We’re dealing with animals,” Trump said. “You’re letting people come in from terrorist nations. That shouldn’t be allowed. This could be the great Trojan horse of our time.”

Trump then listed a series of purported crimes committed by refugees from Iraq, Morocco and Syria, including the San Bernardino attack in December and the Boston Marathon bombing of 2013, noting that the terrorists in those crimes were legally residing in the U.S. or were awaiting citizenship.

Trump also took a moment to reference issues with gun control, citing the November Paris attacks as a defense of the Second Amendment.

“You remember in Paris we had the disaster, 130 people viciously, violently killed? If you had some guns on the other side of that equation, that wouldn’t have happened,” he said, suggesting that if people were armed, they’d be more likely to defend themselves against terror attacks.

“Remember this: Hillary Clinton essentially wants to take away your rights under the Second Amendment. She wants to take away your guns, she wants to take away those bullets,” he said. “…We need to protect our Second Amendment.”

This was the third time Trump has stopped in Maine during his presidential campaign. His first visit was to Portland in March prior to the Republican caucus; the second to Bangor in late June.

Thursday’s speech was interrupted several times by protesters from the Maine People’s Alliance, two of whom were escorted out by police for holding up copies of the U.S. Constitution. “A Trump rally is the safest place in our country to be,” Trump said, noting the police presence.

“Isn’t that amazing? It’s sort of rude when you think of it,” Trump said, after a third protester was escorted from the balcony for blowing a whistle during his speech. “What are we looking for? We want strong military, good jobs, good education, good health care. We’re all looking for the same thing. You want to have a good life, you want to have safety, and then we have people interrupting constantly.”

“It hasn’t been happening much,” he said regarding protests. “It’s happening a little bit today, but it hasn’t been happening that much. I sort of miss my protesters. ”

Gov. Paul LePage, who introduced Trump on Thursday, criticized the media for its alleged ignorance of terrorism.

“They’re ignoring the threat of terrorism in this nation,” LePage said. “They ignore the $20 trillion that was racked up by the president and Congress, and they’re not talking about it. Donald Trump is. He’s not ignoring the facts of where our country is going if someone doesn’t start leading.”

Trump said it is necessary to restructure the nation’s armed forces to better combat the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS.

“We’ve got to rebuild our whole military, folks. We’ve probably almost never needed it more than we need it now with all the folks out there who don’t like us very much,” Trump said, also calling for improved military infrastructure. “When we fix a part for some of the jet fighters that we’re currently using, we have to go to the plane graveyard to take them off old planes because they don’t make the parts anymore, they’re too old.”

“We go to museums to take the parts out of planes,” Trump alleged, a statement some supporters in the audience could be heard saying was an exaggeration. “This is the United States of America, and this is what we’re using.”

“We’re going to be very strong, very smart. We’re going to take care of our vets. Our vets are so badly treated. People are dying online waiting for doctors and committing suicides,” Trump claimed. “I put a plan in. People are loving the plan, people are loving the plan.”

Trump did not discuss details of his alleged plan to help veterans, only saying the government would pay for it.

Trump’s support of veterans comes days after he lashed out against the family of a fallen Muslim-American soldier, Humayun Khan, who was killed by a suicide bomber in Iraq in 2004.

Trump said Khan’s parents, Khizr and Ghazala, had no right to publicly call him out at the Democratic National Convention and claim he had never read the Constitution. Trump said he had “made a lot of sacrifices” for his country.

“It wasn’t Mr. Trump who sent his family over there, and it wasn’t Mr. Trump who voted to send him over there,” said Brad Littlefield, a former Sanford city councilor and volunteer with the organization Maine for Trump.

“To me, I respect the sacrifices that Mr. Khan’s son gave for his country,” Littlefield said. “But having a military family stand up there to insult Mr. Trump was probably out of the norm. I’m not sure we should use families of military personnel who have passed away as political props.

“So to speak in the case of Mr. Khan, you have some exceptional valuable connection back to the Clinton Foundation and the Democratic Party.”

Trump reiterated his plans to build a wall along Mexico’s border to block illegal immigrants and the illegal drug trade, to be paid for by Mexico. He also said the U.S. needs to “defeat the queen of corruption,” referring to Clinton, to advance the county’s national security efforts.

“We are going to make our country strong again. We are going to make America powerful again,” Trump said. “We’re going to knock the hell out of ISIS.

“We are going to make America first. We are going to make America great again.”

— Staff Writer Alan Bennett can be contacted at 282-1535, ext. 329 or abennett@journaltribune.com.