Donald Trump Won’t Walk Back on Obama: ‘No, I Meant He’s the Founder of ISIS’
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has shifted the discussion away from his assassination joke about Hillary Clinton, and on to his remark that President Obama is the “founder of ISIS,” and on Thursday morning, he turned down an opportunity to soften that claim. In a radio interview with the real estate mogul-turned-candidate, conservative commentator and MSNBC contributor Hugh Hewitt said that while he understood the point Trump was trying to make, he wondered if more moderate and accurate language would be appropriate. Trump agreed with the substance of Hewitt’s critique, but stood by his nomenclature nonetheless:
HH: I’ve got two more questions. Last night, you said the President was the founder of ISIS. I know what you meant. You meant that he created the vacuum, he lost the peace.
DT: No, I meant he’s the founder of ISIS. I do. He was the most valuable player. I give him the most valuable player award. I give her, too, by the way, Hillary Clinton.
HH: But he’s not sympathetic to them. He hates them. He’s trying to kill them.
DT: I don’t care. He was the founder. His, the way he got out of Iraq was that that was the founding of ISIS, okay?
HH: Well, that, you know, I have a saying, Donald Trump, the pneumonic device I use is Every Liberal Really Seems So, So Sad. E is for Egypt, L is for Libya, S is for Syria, R is for Russia reset. They screwed everything up. You don’t get any argument from me. But by using the term founder, they’re hitting with you on this again. Mistake?
DT: No, it’s no mistake. Everyone’s liking it. I think they’re liking it. I give him the most valuable player award. And I give it to him, and I give it to, I gave the co-founder to Hillary. I don’t know if you heard that.
HH: I did. I did. I played it.
DT: I gave her the co-founder.
Trump’s disagreement with Hewitt would seem to come down to a dispute over what the definition of “founder” is, but Trump went on to rather astonishingly reveal the true reason for his insistence on the term:
HH: And that’s, I’d just use different language to communicate it, but let me close with this, because I know I’m keeping you long, and Hope’s going to kill me.
DT: But they wouldn’t talk about your language, and they do talk about my language, right?
HH: Well, good point. Good point.
Good point, indeed.
This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.
