Republican Senator John McCain said on Thursday that President Barack Obama is “directly responsible” for the mass shooting in Orlando, Florida, because of the rise of the Islamic State group on the president’s watch. But he later issued a statement saying that he “misspoke.”
“I did not mean to imply that the president was personally responsible. I was referring to President Obama’s national security decisions, not the president himself,” McCain said in his statement, issued as his initial comments drew heated criticism from Democrats.
McCain, who lost to Obama in the 2008 presidential election, spoke to reporters in the Capitol on Thursday while Obama was in Orlando visiting with the families of those killed in Sunday’s attack and some of the survivors.
A visibly angry McCain said as the Senate debated a spending bill:
Barack Obama is directly responsible for it, because when he pulled everybody out of Iraq, al-Qaida went to Syria, became ISIS, and ISIS is what it is today thanks to Barack Obama’s failures, utter failures, by pulling everybody out of Iraq. So the responsibility for it lies with President Barack Obama and his failed policies.
The gunman, Omar Mateen, killed 49 people and injured more than 50 in the attack at a gay nightclub. The 29-year-old Muslim born in New York made calls during the attack saying he was a supporter of the Islamic State. But he also spoke about an affiliate of al-Qaida and Hezbollah, both of which are IS enemies.
In the aftermath of the shooting, presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has accused Obama of putting US enemies ahead of Americans. Trump also has suggested that Obama himself might sympathise with radical elements.
Democrats criticised Trump and some Republicans tried to distance themselves from his remarks.
As I have said, President Obama’s decision to completely withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq in 2011 led to the rise of ISIL. I and others have long warned that the failure of the president’s policy to deny ISIL safe haven would allow the terrorist organisation to inspire, plan, direct or conduct attacks on the United States and Europe as they have done in Paris, Brussels, San Bernardino and now Orlando.John McCain
Democrats quickly pounced on McCain’s criticism.
Adam Jentleson, a spokesman for Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said McCain’s “unhinged comments are just the latest proof that Senate Republicans are puppets of Donald Trump.”
(With agency inputs.)
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