Follow the Story
Pulse nightclub to be demolished, making way for memorial to the 2016 mass shooting
White House hails Biden on Pulse shooting anniversary — even as memorial plans stall
The deadliest mass shootings in US history
Suspected Pulse nightclub memorial vandal arrested
Vandal in wheelchair sets fire to Pulse nightclub memorial
Biden overshadows Harris’ first border visit with Pulse memorial designation
WASHINGTON — President Obama is “directly responsible” for the jihadist massacre of 49 people in Orlando, a senior Republican Senator said Thursday.
“Barack Obama is directly responsible for it, because when he pulled everybody out of Iraq, al-Qaeda went to Syria, became ISIS, and ISIS is what it is today thanks to Barack Obama’s failures,” John McCain said of the killings.
The weekend attack was carried out in a gay nightclub by a 29-year-old man who pledged allegiance to ISIS.
“He pulled everybody out of Iraq,” McCain, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said of Obama, “and I predicted at the time that ISIS would go unchecked, and there would be attacks on the United States of America….It’s a matter of record, so he is directly responsible.”
The Washington Post first reported on McCain’s exchange with reporters.
McCain lost the race for the presidency to Obama in 2008.
McCain, who has served nearly 30 years in the Senate and is up for reelection in Arizona, soon began to walk back his accusation.
“To clarify,” McCain wrote on Twitter later Thursday afternoon, “I was referring to Pres Obama’s national security decisions that have led to rise of #ISIL, not to the President himself.”
