Mike Huckabee only recently launched his presidential campaign, but he is already on the offensive.
The former Arkansas governor criticized President Obama’s refusal to label attacks against the United States and its allies as attacks from Islamic jihadism, calling his administrations’ approach to security “incredibly unbalanced.”
“The biggest mistake is he will not identify this enemy as Islamic jihadism,” the Republican said on Fox News Wednesday morning. “I hear the semantic games … It doesn’t matter. It’s rooted in Islamic jihadism. Whether it’s a Qaeda, ISIS, they’re all leaves from the same tree.”
Huckabee then cited the attempted attack on a cartoon exhibit Sunday in a Dallas, Texas, suburb. Two gunmen were shot after opening fire at the event which exhibited cartoon depictions of the Prophet Muhammad. The Islamic State has since claimed responsibility, though there is no known direct link between the group and the attackers.
“Thank God for an off-duty traffic cop with a Glock who took down two people,” Huckabee said of the officer who took out the two gunmen before anyone was seriously wounded or killed.
Regardless, “something is incredibly unbalanced about our approach to security” when certain travelers can be “stripped electronically naked” by TSA agents, “and this guy is tweeting he’s about to attack somebody and we don’t catch that,” he said.
The investigation into the two men who attempted the attack is still under investigation by the FBI. It was the first attack the Islamic State has claimed credit for in the U.S. — and it has promised many more.
