Donald Trump is now accusing President Barack Obama of founding the Islamic State group that is wreaking havoc from the Middle East to European cities. “In many respects, you know, they honor President Obama,” Trump said Wednesday during a raucous campaign rally outside Fort Lauderdale, Florida. “He is the founder of ISIS.”
He then repeated the allegation three more times for emphasis.
Asked in an interview with CNBC on Thursday morning whether it was appropriate for him to call the sitting president of the United States the founder of a terrorist organization that kills Americans, Trump doubled down.
“He was the founder of ISIS, absolutely,” said Trump. “Is there something wrong with saying that? Why? Are people complaining that I said he was the founder of ISIS?”
Trump has long blamed Obama and his former secretary of state — Hillary Clinton — for pursuing Mideast policies that created a power vacuum in Iraq that was exploited by IS. But in an interview with conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt, that message appeared muddled.
Hewitt said that as he understood Trump’s comments to mean Obama created unstable conditions by withdrawing U.S. forces that allowed IS to thrive. Trump responded, “No, I mean he’s the founder of ISIS. I do. He was the most valuable player,” according to interview transcripts.
“His, the way he got out of Iraq was that that was the founding of ISIS, okay?” Trump said Thursday in the CNBC interview that the U.S. “should have never gotten in” the Iraq war, but also shouldn’t “have got out the way he got out.”
The Republican presidential nominee in the past has accused his opponent of founding the militant group. As he shifted the blame to Obama on Wednesday, he said “crooked Hillary Clinton” was actually the group’s co-founder.Trump also struck out at Obama for using a different acronym to describe the militant group.
“He calls it ISIL because nobody else does, and he wants to bother people by using a different term, and whether it’s more accurate or not — most people call it ISIS,” Trump said.
The debate over what to call the group has been wide ranging since its founding. The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, appears to be the most common term used by Americans to describe the group. The Associated Press and some media organizations refer to the group as the Islamic State, while Arabic speakers and some European leaders know it by the acronym “Daesh.”
The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, or ISIL, refers to an area of the Middle East, the Levant, that is usually meant to encompass modern day Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Jordan and Turkey. It represents an expression of the geography the group hopes to dominate, rather than current political borders. The White House declined to comment on Trump’s accusation.
The Islamic State group began as Iraq’s local affiliate of al-Qaida, the group that attacked the U.S. on Sept. 11, 2001. The group carried out massive attacks against Iraq’s Shiite Muslim majority, fueling tensions with al-Qaida’s central leadership. The local group’s then-leader, Jordanian-born Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, was killed in 2006 in a U.S. airstrike but is still seen as the Islamic State group’s founder.
Trump’s accusation — and his use of the president’s middle name, Hussein — echoed previous instances where he’s questioned Obama’s loyalties.
In June, when a shooter who claimed allegiance to IS killed 49 people in an Orlando, Florida, nightclub, Trump seemed to suggest Obama was sympathetic to the group when he said Obama “doesn’t get it, or he gets it better than anybody understands.” In the past, Trump has also falsely suggested Obama is a Muslim or was born in Kenya, where Obama’s father was from.
The president, a Christian, was born in Hawaii.
Trump lobbed the allegation midway through his rally at a sports arena, where riled-up supporters shouted obscenities about Clinton and joined in unison to shout “lock her up.” He railed against the fact that the Orlando shooter’s father, Seddique Mateen, was spotted in the crowd behind Clinton during a Monday rally in Florida.
“Wasn’t it terrible when the father of the animal that killed the wonderful people in Orlando was sitting with a big smile on his face right behind Hillary Clinton?” Trump asked the crowd, adding “Of course he likes Hillary Clinton.
“Sitting behind Trump at his rally on Wednesday was former Rep. Mark Foley, R-Fla., who resigned in 2006 after allegations he sent sexually suggestive messages to underage House pages. The scandal over the messages, especially the blasé attitude that Republican leadership took towards Foley’s conduct, contributed to the Democrats’ election success that year, when they won back both the U.S. House and Senate.
“When you get those seats you sort of know the campaign,” Trump said at the rally. “So when she said. ‘Well, we didn’t know,’ he knew, they knew.” To illustrate his point, he turned to the crowd and asked, “How many of you people know me? A lot of you people know me, right?”
Some, including Foley, raised their hands.Foley told an MSNBC reporter that Trump is a longtime friend and one of his biggest contributors. Federal Election Commission records show that Trump made a handful of donations to Foley over the years.
In 2007, Illinois Rep. Dennis Hastert, then speaker of the House, was forced to hand over the gavel to Democratic Rep. Nancy Pelosi. He was later convicted of financial crimes tied to a coverup of his sexual abuse of students while he was a teacher before entering politics.