President Obama on Sunday faulted leading Republican presidential candidates Sen. Ted Cruz and Donald Trump over their proposals for combating terrorism while highlighting his success fighting terrorism.
“There isn’t a president who has taken more terrorists off the field than me, over the last seven and a half years,” Obama said in an interview Sunday on “Fox News Sunday.”
“I am the guy who calls the families … after a terrorist attack,” Obama said, responding to questions about whether he does not project enough concern about terrorism.
Obama said that “carpet bombing innocent civilians” is “not a productive approach” to taking on terrorists. A plan to ban all Muslims “is not a productive approach,” he said.
Cruz has repeatedly claimed he would carpet bomb Islamic State militants in Syria, an approach military experts say is impossible without killing many civilians, because the group is located mostly in cities among the regular population. Cruz has denied his plan would hit civilians, but has not explained how. Trump has urged a temporary ban stopping all Muslims from entering the United States.
Obama said that his reactions to terror attacks have been limited because “it has been my view consistently,” that a terrorist’s goal “is to induce panic, induce fear,” and get Americans “to change who there are.”
“You can’t change us,” Obama said. “You can kill some of us, but we will hunt you down, and we will get you.”
As in Boston after the marathon bombing, “we’re going to go to a ballgame” in the face of terror, Obama said
“We don’t panic,” he said. “We don’t fear.”
