Donald Trump is showing no signs that he will stop questioning President Obama’s commitment to fighting Islamic militants in the wake of the deadly attack at a gay nightclub in Orlando.
“I can’t define it. I mean, nobody knows what’s going on; nobody knows why he doesn’t have more anger, why he doesn’t more competitive zeal,” Trump said Monday night on Fox News’s “The O’Reilly Factor.”
{mosads}”He’s a competitive person. Why doesn’t he have more competitive zeal to knock them out?” Trump asked.
Trump, the presumptive GOP presidential nominee, escalated his criticism of Obama earlier Monday while pushing the president to be more aggressive in his anti-terrorism approach.
“There’s something going on,” Trump said Monday on “Fox and Friends.” “He doesn’t get it, or he gets it better than anybody understands. It’s one or the other, and either one is unacceptable.”
Trump has spoken darkly of Obama’s motives to combat Islamic extremism after the massacre early Sunday.
The gunman, Omar Mateen, reportedly claimed to be a supporter of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria during the attack, though he also referenced individuals connected to other terrorist groups.
The White House dismissed Trump’s controversial comments from early Monday as “small” while defending the president’s record on fighting terrorism.
“If you look at the president’s record, it speaks for itself, and that record includes a lot of dead terrorists,” White House press secretary Josh Earnest told reporters.