If voters are looking for a presidential candidate who is intimately familiar with the Islamic State, Rick Santorum says he’s their man.
In a fundraising email flagged by The Washington Post’s Dave Weigel on Thursday, the Republican candidate bragged about his ability to take on “radical world leaders.”
This Rick Santorum fundraising letter is everything. pic.twitter.com/7crgD6cpdw
— daveweigel (@daveweigel) November 5, 2015
The email referenced comments made by President Obama about the GOP field’s heavy criticism of the CNBC presidential debate. Speaking at a Democratic fundraiser in New York, Obama mocked the candidates for taking a hard line on foreign policy yet being unable to “handle a bunch of CNBC moderators.”
“If you can’t handle those guys, then I don’t think the Chinese and the Russians are going to be too worried about you,” the president said.
Santorum countered Obama’s jab by saying he has “taken on” formidable forces including ISIS and Iran.
“They know who I am and I know who they are!” he wrote.
The former Pennsylvania senator is known for advocating an aggressive approach to terrorism. In May, he proposed that the U.S. bomb ISIS “back to the 7th Century.”
Santorum also suggested he was up to taking on challengers closer to home, pointing to his appearances on various liberal-leaning talk shows. One example was his July visit to MSNBC’s “Rachel Maddow Show,” in which he insisted that the Supreme Court decision legalizing gay marriage was illegitimate. Though Maddow told him he was “fundamentally wrong on civics,” Santorum said he “won” the argument.
The Santorum campaign did not immediately respond to multiple requests for comment.
