At a rally last night in Ft. Lauderdale, and repeated this morning, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said that President Barack Obama was the “founder” of terrorist group ISIS and that rival Hillary Clinton was its “co-founder.”
… Trump also said that ISIS “honors” Obama — who the GOP nominee referred to as “Barack Hussein Obama.”
“Normally you want to clean up; he made a bigger mess out of it. He made such a mess. And then you had Hillary with Libya, so sad,” Trump said.
“In fact, in many respects, you know they honor president Obama. ISIS is honoring President Obama. He is the founder of ISIS. He’s the founder of ISIS, OK? He’s the founder. He founded ISIS.”
Challenged on whether it’s a joke, he made clear that it is not. It’s just the unhinged not-quite-metaphorical blathering of the day from Donald.
“He was the founder of ISIS, absolutely,” Trump said. “The way he removed our troops — you shouldn’t have gone in. I was against the war in Iraq. Totally against it.”
Update: it’s not the first time Trump’s floated this idea.
HEWITT: I think you meant Obama created the vacuum that led to ISIS.
TRUMP: "No, I meant he’s the founder of ISIS." pic.twitter.com/EMMlDXogl6
— Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) August 11, 2016