Speaker of the House Paul Ryan blamed Islamist terrorists for the Orlando mass shootings Sunday, pledging that the nation would not back down from terror attacks.
“As we heal, we need to be clear-eyed about who did this,” the Wisconsin Republican said in a statement issued by his office early Sunday evening. “We are a nation at war with Islamist terrorists.”
Ryan decried radical Islamism as a “repressive, hateful ideology that respects no borders.”
The speaker ordered the flags at the Capitol to be flown at half-mast in honor of the victims of the shooting that took place in Orlando.
His comments highlighting the role of Islamism in the terror attack were an implicit reaction to President Obama and other Democrats who refrained from implicating religion in the shooting.
Reports Sunday indicated that the shooter, Omar Mateen, had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State or ISIS.
Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee for president, earlier in the day criticized his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton for avoiding the term “radical Islam.” He also called on President Obama to resign from office for not using the term in a brief press conference.
While Republicans faulted Democrats for declining to place blame for the shooting on Islamism Sunday, Democrats in turn blamed members of the GOP for past resistance to legislation related to gun control. Obama used his press appearance to call for gun control measures.
