Donald Trump on Wednesday, accused President Barack Obama of founding the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant group, ISIS. The Republican candidate emphasized the president’s full legal name: Barack Hussein Obama, in the latest attack on the White House campaign trail.
“In many respects, you know, they honour President Obama,” Trump said during a raucous campaign rally outside Fort Lauderdale, Florida. “He is the founder of ISIS.”
He repeated the allegation three times.
“He’s the founder of ISIS, okay?” he added. “He’s the founder. He founded ISIS.”
Trump has long blamed Obama and his former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for pursuing Middle East policies that created a power vacuum in Iraq that was exploited by ISIL. He has sharply criticised Obama for announcing that he would pull US troops out of Iraq, a decision that many Obama critics say created the kind of instability in which groups such as ISIL thrive.
“We should never have gotten out the way we got out.” he added. “We unleashed terrible fury all over the Middle East. Instead of allowing some small forces behind to maybe just maybe, keep it under control, we pulled it out.”
The New York businessman went on to criticise Clinton, his Democratic party rival for the presidency.
“And I would say, the co-founder would be crooked Hillary Clinton,” he said. Trump railed at both Obama and Clinton for refusing to put a name to radical Islamic terrorism.
