Kari Lake, Republican candidate for U.S. Senate in Arizona, unleashed a scathing critique of former President Barack Obama’s counterterrorism record during a recent interview. Lake argued that Obama severely weakened America’s standing in the world and was directly responsible for the rise of ISIS.
“He was behind ISIS. He didn’t do a darned thing to wipe ISIS off the planet. He ignored the threat of ISIS and you could say he was behind the creation of elevating ISIS. Thank God for President Trump to go in and wipe out ISIS and do so rather quickly,” Lake stated.
She accused Obama of emboldening terrorists through the controversial Iran nuclear deal, which provided sanctions relief to the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism. Lake contrasted Obama’s fecklessness with Trump’s decisiveness in destroying the ISIS caliphate.
Lake also slammed Obama’s attempt last week to create a moral equivalence between Israel and the Hamas terrorists it is fighting. She argued that Obama’s constant apologies for America during his presidency undermined U.S. strength and credibility on the world stage.
“And Obama is responsible for terrorism around the globe with the funding of [Iran]… And so to watch him in such a weakened state, I look at this guy and I think how on earth were so many people tricked by him?” she asked. “This is a guy who should keep his mouth shut because he’s to blame for much of the problems, or he should apologize for what he’s done to embolden terrorists.”
“If you want to solve the problem, then you have to take in the whole truth,” Obama said. “And you then have to admit nobody’s hands are clean, that all of us are complicit to some degree.”
“If there is any chance of us being able to act, constructively to do so, it will require an admission of complexity,” the former president said of the political situation in the Palestinian territories. He then stated that solutions will require global citizens to hold ideas that “may seem contradictory,” noting that “what Hamas did was horrific.”
Lake, who is running for Senate in Arizona, joins other Republicans in rejecting the Biden administration’s calls for Israel to agree to an immediate ceasefire. She argues that would only allow Hamas to regroup and reload for more attacks on Israel.
Lake’s strong stances underscore her emergence as an unapologetic, America-first conservative who will vigorously challenge Democrats like Senator Kyrsten Sinema and Representative Ruben Gallego Arizona’s pivotal 2022 Senate race.