President Barack Obama is "more interested in protecting the reputation of Islam than he is in protecting the American people," GOP candidate Mike Huckabee said Monday, responding to the president's Oval Office speech.
"This administration has consistently misread the very obvious signs of radical Islamic jihadism, and it's just unfortunate that we continue to see more waves of this," the former Arkansas governor told
Fox News' "Fox & Friends" program.
"Even last night in his speech, he could not bring himself to recognize that we are at war with radical Islam. Not with Islam, but radical Islam. And we've got to start understanding that."
Huckabee continued that it's "inexplicable" for a president to not want to identify Islamic terrorism.
"Today's Pearl Harbor Day," said Huckabee. "Can you imagine Franklin Delano Roosevelt going before Congress and saying we were attacked yesterday in Pearl Harbor? We just want to say they were terrible people and they were thugs."
One of the most important jobs for a president, he continued, is to reassure the American people that all efforts are being made to protect them, but instead "we once again heard the same old rinse and repeat, let's have more gun control."
Huckabee also said he believes the answer is to tell Americans "to be prepared to defend themselves, be prepared to go after these people, because at some point, they're going to come to our streets if we don't start talking realistically."
The former governor also appeared on
MSNBC's "Morning Joe" show, where he said Americans believe Obama is "detached" from the reality they face.
"He's protected by armed guards every day," said Huckabee. "Most Americans are not. The people that went to that holiday party last week in San Bernardino thought they were having a nice wonderful dinner with their colleagues
. . . He got up and came back and shot them all. This is what people are afraid of. Who can they trust? If they don't have his protection, they want to know he's going to provide true government resources."