Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum said Monday that rather than viewing President Obama as an enemy, the Islamic State looks at the president as an ally.
Santorum, who made the comment in an interview with NewsmaxTV’s Steve Malzberg, also pressed that the terrorist group lists him as an enemy, saying he’s the only one in the GOP 2016 field listed with such a designation. The former Pennsylvania senator also told the host that they view Obama as such due to his policy to “contain” the brutal terrorist organization.
“ISIS listed me, the only person in the presidential race, as an enemy of ISIS. And when they listed me in their publication as an enemy of ISIS, they did so because I accurately described who they are, and I accurately described why we had to defeat them,” Santorum said. “They see that as a threat. That’s an enemy.”
“They don’t see Barack Obama as an enemy. They see him in many respects, the policies he’s put forward, as an ally because the Obama policy is to contain ISIS,” Santorum argued. “What does that mean? Allow them to keep their territory.”
“If we allow them to keep their territory, we are feeding ISIS the most powerful tool they have — which is to say we have fought the great Satan of the United States, we have maintained our territorial integrity, and you must follow us,” the former senator said.
Santorum, who’s been unable to gain traction in the 2016 race thus far, also made news Monday by hitting back at former President Bill Clinton for insinuations that the Santorums secretly aborted their infant child, Gabriel, in 1997. When asked by the The Daily Caller about the comments, Santorum wondered, “what kind of darkness do you have in you?”
According to the Washington Examiner‘s latest power rankings, Santorum ranks 11th in the 14-candidate field.
