Washington: Hours after President Barack Obama blasted him for his anti-Muslim rhetoric, Donald Trump on Wednesday hit back calling him a "lousy" president who he said is "more angry" at the Republican presidential nominee than the Orlando shooter.
"He (Obama) was more angry at me than he was at the shooter, and many people said that. One of the folks on television said, 'Boy, has Trump gotten under his skin,'"Trump told his cheering supporters at an election rally in Greensboro, North Carolina.
"The level of anger, that's the kind of anger he should have for the shooter and these killers that shouldn't be here. We have a radical Islamic terrorism problem," Trump said.
He was responding to Obama's strong statement earlier in the day in which he slammed the real estate tycoon for his anti-Muslim rhetoric including temporary ban of entry of Muslims in the US, increase in surveillance and for describing it as "radical Islamic terrorism".
"There is no magic to the phrase 'radical Islam'. It is a political talking point. It is not a strategy," Obama had said in his remarks at the Department of Treasury after he held a meeting with his national security council.
"We now have proposals from the presumptive Republican nominee for president of the United States to bar all Muslims from immigrating into America. And you hear language that singles out immigrants and suggests entire religious communities are complacent in violence," he said.
"Where does this stop? The Orlando killer, one of the San Bernardino killers, the Fort Hood killer -- they were all US citizens. Are we going to start treating all Muslim-Americans differently? Are we going to start subjecting them to special surveillance? Are we going to start discriminate them, because of their faith?" Obama asked.
Obama said this makes Muslim-Americans feel like their government is betraying them.
"It betrays the very values America stands for. We have gone through moments in our history before when we acted out of fear, and we came to regret it. We have seen our government mistreat our fellow citizens, and it has been a shameful part of our history," said the president.
However, Trump stood his ground. "I would have been very happy had Obama been a great president. He's been one hell of a lousy president. He's done a terrible job. What's happening to our country is devastating and embarrassing and our lives will never be the same," Trump said.
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