President Barack Obama "is the founder" of the Islamic State, according to Donald Trump. And Hillary Clinton is the "co-founder."
Trump, the Republican nominee for president, made the claims about Obama and Clinton, his Democratic rival, during a rally in Sunrise, Florida, Wednesday evening. The billionaire businessman asserted the Democrats' policies and positions have resulted in the rapid growth of the Islamic State.
Donald Trump at Florida rally: President Obama "is the founder of ISIS" https://t.co/UYpqI3w42L https://t.co/lPMyoTgTdb
— CNN (@CNN) August 11, 2016
"ISIS is honoring President Obama," Trump said, using a popular acronym for the terror group. "He is the founder of ISIS. He is the founder of ISIS, OK? He’s the founder. He founded ISIS. And I would say the co-founder would be crooked Hillary Clinton."
Moments after making the bold remarks, his supporters in the BB&T Center broke out in chants of "Lock her up," a phrase that became popular during the Republican National Convention last month.
Trump hit Obama for his decision to pull U.S. military forces from the Middle East, which he asserts left a vacuum for radical Islamists to fill. The GOP nominee said Obama should have left "some small forces behind" to "keep it under control" because not doing so "unleashed terrible fury all over the Middle East."
"Radical Islamic terrorism," Trump continued. "And people don’t like saying that. Our president refuses to use the term. Every time another event happens, I keep saying, I wonder if he’s gonna say it this time. And he doesn’t say it."
He slammed Clinton, too, for not using the phrase "radical Islamic terrorism."
"She doesn’t wanna say it, cause she doesn’t wanna offend the president, because then bad things could happen to her if she offends the president," Trump said. "Bad things could happen to her. So she’s afraid to say it. Hillary’s afraid to say it. She did say that she would say it because of me, but she’s afraid to say it. But, we have a real problem with radical Islamic terror.
"It's’ what it is," he continued. "It’s terror."
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