House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) said although he was moved by President Obama’s tearful gun control announcement this week, the deaths of citizens around the world at the hands of Islamic State militants should have warranted the same emotional response.
“I was affected by it, but I thought we should’ve had the same kind of reaction when James Foley was beheaded, when San Bernardino and Paris occurred,” Ryan said in an interview with Katie Couric. “That’s the kind of reaction I had when those occurred.”
Obama wiped away tears during the Tuesday announcement, saying of the 20 elementary school children gunned down at Sandy Hook, “Every time I think about those kids, it gets me mad.”
Conservatives decried Obama’s show of emotion, peddling conspiracy theories about how the President conjured up fake tears.
In the interview, Ryan also said he sees the executive action as a “distraction” and said Obama should put as much work into combating the Islamic State as he is with efforts to “frustrate the law abiding citizens.”
Watch the interview, via Yahoo! News:
