Donald Trump today called President Barack Obama and Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton “co-founders” of Islamic State, igniting fresh criticism of his inflammatory campaign style.
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Asked specifically about USA citizens, Trump said he didn’t like that President Barack Obama and others wanted to try them in traditional courts rather than military commissions at Guantanamo Bay.
“Anyone willing to sink so low, so often should never be allowed to serve as our Commander-in-Chief.”
Donald Trump says President Barack Obama is the “founder” of the Islamic State group.
Instead, amid a flare of renewed controversy less than three months before the November 8 election, Trump doubled down, repeating to homebuilders in Miami Beach, Florida that Obama and Clinton founded the violent extremist group.
Democrat Hillary Clinton’s lead over Trump in national polls has widened in recent days, while a growing number of fellow Republicans have declared they won’t support him.
He made the claim again at a rally Thursday night in Kissimmee, Florida.
Clinton’s campaign has cried foul and accused Trump of mimicking Russian President Vladimir Putin’s talking points, and the Democratic Party had asked for an apology.
“I don’t care”, he said during a radio interview with conservative personality Hugh Hewitt after Hewitt stated that Obama hates Daesh and is “trying to kill them”. His campaign has taken a significant dip after Trump went after the family of a decorated Muslim Army captain who was killed while serving in Iraq.
He eyed a reset Monday by rolling out his economic policies.
In increasing numbers, Americans – Democrats and Republicans – recognize that Trump is incapable of serious debate, let alone of conducting foreign affairs, including the power of war.
The New York real estate developer has previously attacked Obama and Clinton, secretary of state from 2009-13, for how the United States pulled out of Iraq after the war, saying it helped create the militant Islamist group that has seized swaths of Iraq and Syria. However, Trump previously had said he wanted USA troops out years earlier than Obama withdrew them.
The president may have even underestimated the Islamic State, once famously calling it the “JV-team” – a junior varsity team – of the big-league al-Qaeda – while it turned out worse.
Earlier on Thursday, Mr Trump stood firm when asked by CNBC whether it was appropriate to say a sitting USA president founded a jihadist group determined to kill Americans.
Trump did not back down, asking on CNBC: “Is there something wrong with saying that?”
Trump said, “I like to reduce debt too, as much as anybody”. “All I do is tell the truth, I’m a truth teller”. “I’m a truth-teller”.
Clinton has hit Republican nominee Donald Trump for not releasing his returns. The remark was widely interpreted as an allusion to the possibility Clinton might be assassinated.
Relatives of Republican president Ronald Reagan, who was shot and wounded in 1981, and slain civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr also condemned Trump for his gun remarks.
Touring a factory in Michigan, Clinton has been setting out what she would do for the economy if elected president. At Wednesday’s rally, the crowd cheered, “Lock her up!” in response to Trump’s attack.
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“Don’t believe it”, she said. “Although the Second Amendment people, maybe there is, I don’t know”.
