Kevin Lamarque/Reuters
Despite a world rocked by attacks carried out by Muslims, President Obama dismissed religion’s role in global terrorism. “No religion is responsible for terrorism. People are responsible for terrorism,” Obama said Wednesday afternoon at a White House summit on combating violent extremism. Specifically citing al Qaeda and ISIS, Obama stressed that the U.S. is “not at war with Islam, we are at war with people who have perverted Islam.” Republicans like Sen. Ted Cruz and Rudy Giuliani criticized the president for trying to disassociate ISIS from Islam, even though it calls itself the Islamic State and wants to establish a caliphate in the Middle East. Cruz called Obama “an apologist for radical Islamic terorrists” and Giuliani told a private group dinner, “I do not believe, and I know this is a horrible thing to say, but I do not believe that the president loves America.” The former mayor of New York City added, “He doesn’t love you. And he doesn’t love me. He wasn’t brought up the way you were brought up and I was brought up through love of this country.”