Donald Trump tripled down on the claim President Barack Obama, aided by Hillary Clinton, was the founder of ISIS, the Islamic State (ISIS) in Iraq.
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Gingrich said if Trump had said Obama and Clinton’s policies had created the opening for ISIS, he’d be defensible.
On Thursday, Trump said he would respond to his admitted problems in his campaign by doing “the same thing I’m doing right now”.
Donald Trump says that the ISIS gained enormous ground during Hillary Clinton’s term as Secretary of State, why hasn’t the media reported that?
Trump’s accusation against Obama and Clinton went well beyond a charge made in the past by him and other Republicans: that the president and former secretary of state helped create the conditions for the rise of Islamic State by withdrawing USA troops from Iraq.
On August 1, the Pentagon announced that it had expanded its air war against Daesh into Libya, carrying out attacks in Sirte, the major stronghold of Daesh outside Iraq and Syria. And that’s when ISIS really came about big league.
“He (Obama) was the most valuable player”.
Let us be clear: It is wildly inaccurate to say Obama or Clinton “co-founded” ISIS. “His, the way he got out of Iraq was that was the founding of ISIS, okay?”
The Clinton campaign condemned Trump’s comments.
Trump on Friday tried to calm down the situation by saying he was being sarcastic.
But asked about that Thursday, Trump seemed to go further, saying he was talking literally about Obama creating the terrorist organization.
Trump said he wasn’t anxious Republicans would cut him off – and threatened to stop fundraising for the party if they do.
“The conflict in Syria created a flawless vacuum in terms of governance, and so the civil war became an opportunity for the restoration of the organization”, he told the Post.
“I call him a founder”. Set aside the fact that Trump is stretching the definition of “founder” here.
Almost one-fifth of registered Republicans now want Trump to drop out of the race for the White House, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Wednesday.
Obama reportedly did consider leaving up to 10,000 troops in strategic locations after the exit, but that plan faced opposition both in the United States and in Iraq.
Clinton aides say she’s taking nothing for granted, noting the US remains a deeply politically divided country. She was a disaster as a senator from NY.
“No, Barack Obama is not the founder of ISIS”, she wrote.
These concerns track those we’ve heard from foreign policy experts. Trump maintains a 40% appeal according to the latest CNN poll.
On Thursday evening, Trump had one more exchange with a local television reporter about Obama starting ISIS. “Because without him you wouldn’t have the threat, the awful situation going on around the world with ISIS”, Trump told Fox News a day earlier.
In battleground Pennsylvania, Trump again bashed the media for taking his comments out of context.
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PolitiFact is keeping its rating at trousers on Fire.
