Second Dem splits with Obama on ISIS label

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) on Thursday said he disagreed with President Obama’s position against labeling terrorists the U.S. is fighting as Islamic radicals.

“It’s pretty simple in the language we speak in West Virginia — it is what it is,” Manchin said in an interview on CNN’s “The Situation Room.”

Manchin pointed to the Muslim community in his home state. “They’re beautiful people, and we get along great, all of us.”

{mosads}”That being said, there’s radicals in all groups,” he continued. “And when you have a radical person who hides behind a religion — if it be Catholicism, whether it be Protestant or whether it be Islam — it is what it is,” said Manchin, a member of the Senate Armed Services and Veterans’ Affairs committees.

His comments come as Obama struggles to defend his rhetoric and the White House fends off conservatives attacking its terminology when discussing the fight against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

The president’s three-day summit on countering violent extremism has been overshadowed by numerous attacks from Republicans who have said the administration should not shy away from the Islamic radical label.

Another Democrat, Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (Hawaii), slammed the president’s speech Wednesday where he said that the U.S. is “not at war with Islam. We are at war with people who have perverted Islam.”

“If you look at this broad focus on countering violent extremism, which is very hard to define, it’s a diversion away from the actual threat coming from this radical Islamic ideology that exists,” Gabbard, a member of the House Armed Services and Foreign Affairs committees, said on CNN’s “The Situation Room.”

“It’s so important that we recognize that these people are being motivated by a spiritual, theological motivation, which is this radical Islamic ideology,” added Gabbard, who is a combat veteran.

Manchin called on those in the Muslim community to stand against those who commit violence in the name of religion.

He also reflected on what might be pushing the fighters to join ISIS.

“How many of these people over there are really truly believers — these terrorists, Islamic terrorists, fanatic, radical, barbaric — how many people who are actually fighting because they are true believer?” he said. “How many are fighting for a paycheck?”