Why Won’t Obama Say Radical Islam?

When Donald Trump blasted President Obama for failing to make reference to Islam in connection with the Orlando nightclub massacre, the GOP’s presumptive presidential nominee was renewing a longstanding criticism of the White House’s carefully calibrated rhetoric about terrorism.

 

Obama “disgracefully refused to even say the words ‘Radical Islam’,” Trump said in a statement Sunday. “For that reason alone, he should step down. If Hillary Clinton, after this attack, still cannot say the two words ‘Radical Islam’ she should get out of this race for the Presidency.”

 

Trump repeated his criticism on TODAY Monday morning, saying Obama was “not addressing the issue, he’s not calling it what it is.”

 

Although the Orlando gunman pledged allegiance to ISIS, Obama didn’t mention Islam in his remarks about the mass shooting Sunday. In televised remarks at the White House Monday, Obama said the killer had been influenced by “extremist ideology,” but the president did not use the modifier “Islamic.”

 

He did say that “one of the biggest challenges” is the “propaganda and perversion of Islam that you see on the internet.”

 

Read More: Why Won’t Obama Say Radical Islam? – NBC News