President Obama held a press conference today to discuss a number of topics relating to Omar Mateen’s murder of 49 people at Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida this past weekend. In addition to reiterating his thoughts and prayers for the victims’ families, he stated that there is not “any information that a foreign terrorist group directed the attack in Orlando,” though Mateen believed in a lot of extremist propaganda.
Obama also restated his belief that ISIS is growing weaker, and that their campaign in Iraq is effective, saying “ISIL continues to lose key leaders.”
The President also took Donald Trump and Republicans to task for their insistence that he use the phrase “radical Islam.” Obama’s response was, “What exactly would using this label accomplish? What exactly would it change? Would it make ISIL less committed to trying to kill Americans?” A clip of just Obama’s discussion of the phrase can be found at the New York Times. You can view the entire 25 minute press conference above.