Conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh asserted on Sunday that President Barack Obama was avoiding responsibility for creating ISIS by tracing the origins of the terrorist group back to the Iraq invasion.
"People are scared, we've got these refugees coming in and nobody can vet them, and yet, we're told, 'Don't be a bigot, don't be a racist, don't be a xenophobe'" Limbaugh complained to Fox News host Chris Wallace. "We're none of those things."
The radio host recommended that the U.S. "pause" taking in Syrian refugees, and said that leaders should speak to experts about what to do next.
"Look, I have friends who are Syrians," Limbaugh quipped. "I play golf with them, they're great people. This is not about that, it's not about bigotry or racism or anti-ethnics or against certain nationalities. It's about the defense and protection of the United States of America and our Constitution, which is what is the primary job of the president of the United States."
"And again, he just doesn't seem to be oriented in that direction or interested in it," he said of the president. "It's almost as though he thinks that we've committed all these crimes since our founding, 'We're unjust and immoral and it's time for payback, it's time for us to find out what the rest of the world goes through everyday.'"
At that point, Limbaugh said that he was pausing to "bite my lip" because he couldn't express his true feelings on Sunday morning television.
"The people leading the country today... they see us as the problem, not the solution, they think that we are responsible for some of these problems," Limbaugh grumbled. "They fall back and blame George W. Bush for what's going on. ISIS didn't exist when Bush left office."
Earlier this year, Politifact determined that GOP hopeful Jeb Bush was "mostly false" after he made a similar claim about ISIS not existing when his brother was president.
According to the National Counterterrorism Center, the group al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) was establish in 2004 and later renamed to Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), which is also commonly known as ISIS.
