Donald Trump recently called President Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton the founders of the Islamic State, blaming both for the rise of the terrorist group.
"In many respects, you know, they honor President Obama," the Republican presidential nominee said about the Mideast terrorist group at a rally in Florida on Wednesday night. "He's the founder of ISIS. He's the founder of ISIS. He's the founder. He founded ISIS." He continued, "I would say the co-founder would be crooked Hillary Clinton."
"We let ISIS take this position," Trump said at an earlier gathering in Daytona Beach, Florida last week. "It was Hillary Clinton; she should get an award from them as the founder of ISIS."
"Hillary Clinton invented ISIS with her stupid policies," Trump said about the Democratic presidential nominee in an appearance on the CBS News show "60 Minutes" in July. "She is responsible for ISIS."
In June, Trump promoted a theory from Breitbart alleging that "the Obama administration was actively supporting al-Qaida in Iraq, the terrorist group that became the Islamic State."
And in January, Trump said "Hillary Clinton created ISIS with Obama."
"Clinton's enthusiasm for regime change in Libya in 2011, which Obama endorsed, resulted in the collapse of order there, which ISIS and others have exploited," Christopher Preble, a defense expert with the libertarian Cato Institute, told Politifact. "That is a fair criticism, in my opinion."
U.S.-backed Libyan forces ousted Islamic State fighters from central portions of Sirte on Wednesday, dealing a major setback to the group, Reuters reported.
"She may 'share some of the blame,' but there is more than enough share to go around," John Pike, a defense expert and director of GlobalSecurity.org, told Politifact. "She was in no sense the singular author of the thing."
Republicans have blamed Obama's withdrawal of troops from Iraq for allowing Islamic State to flourish there, but according to The Atlantic in 2011, the removal of U.S. troops stemmed largely from the Iraqi government's pressure to remove them.
"Keeping Americans in Iraq longer isn't the answer to the problems of Iraq," former Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi said in an interview, according to the Atlantic. "It may be an answer to the problems of the U.S., but it's definitely not the solution to the problems of my country."
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