Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich fired back at President Barack Obama's attacks on Donald Trump, saying in a
Facebook live stream Tuesday he was "saddened" at Obama's "attitude."
"The president does America and the West a great disservice by suggesting that accurately describing Islamic supremacists means we have to be at war with Islam. That's not true," Gingrich said.
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Obama earlier Tuesday addressed the press and defended his administration's refusal to use the term
"radical Islam" in connection with terrorism. Obama says the term gives terrorist groups the legitimacy they seek.
Trump, the presumptive GOP presidential nominee, has vowed to "bomb the hell out of ISIS" and has proposed a moratorium on Muslim immigration and tourism until the United States can "figure out what the hell is going on."
Gingrich told his Facebook followers on Tuesday that peaceful Muslims should have nothing to fear, but warned action should be taken against radicals,
Politico reports.
"If you're a modern Muslim, if you're willing to accept diversity, if you're willing to accept the rule of secular law, if you're willing to live in peace with your neighbors, we have no problem with you, if you're a modern Muslim," Gingrich said.
"But, if you believe in sharia, and genuinely believe in it, if you think that gays and lesbians ought to be killed, if you think that Christians and Jews and Baha'i and others ought to either submit or be killed, we have a lot of disagreement. If you want to support terrorist movements with money, with recruitment, with propaganda, then you're our enemy."
Obama, Gingrich said, "doesn't come to grips with this.
"I'm saddened by the president's attitude," he said. "He has had failure after failure. Failure in Libya. Failure in Yemen. Failure in Somalia. Failure in Syria. Failure in Iraq. Failure in Afghanistan. And here at home, he has established rules which make it virtually impossible for the FBI to do their job. The Congress ought to review it, make public what the problems are, we should fix them and we should do so before more Americans are killed because of ignorance, timidity and an unwillingness to face reality."