GOP Chairman Reince Priebus said on Monday that President Obama continues to display a lack of strategy for defeating the Islamic State terrorist group and took the criticism a step further by laying blame on his first Secretary of State, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.
Obama, while speaking from the G20 Leader’s Summit in Antalya, Turkey, said his administration is “fully aware of the potential capabilities” of ISIL. “That’s precisely why we have been mounting a very aggressive strategy to go after them,” he said.
Republican National Committee deputy press secretary Raffi Williams released Priebus’ statement on Twitter on Monday.
“With his excuse-laden and defensive press conference, President Obama removed any and all doubt that he lacks the resolve or a strategy to defeat and destroy ISIS,” Priebus said in the statement. “Never before have I seen an American president project such weakness or the global stage, let alone at a time when the world is in such desperate need of the leadership that only we can provide.”
He then pivoted his criticism to include Clinton, the frontrunner in the Democratic presidential contest. She also has the most hands-on foreign policy experience on the Democratic side of the race.
“The resurgence of Islamic extremism is a direct consequence of the failed foreign policy Hillary Clinton helped fashion as President Obama’s secretary of state. She supported President Obama’s hasty withdrawal from the Middle East that contributed to the rise of ISIS, and the Libya intervention she spearheaded created a terrorist breeding ground in North Africa,” Priebus said. “A Clinton presidency would only mean more of the same.”
