Donald Trump slammed Democrats on Tuesday for not once mentioning ISIS on the first day of the Democratic National Convention and accused his rival party of creating the terrorist group through its policies.
Speakers at the first day of the convention Monday largely focused on healing intraparty wounds rather than foreign policy, as supporters of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders protested in the streets and on the delegate floor. A PolitiFact analysis confirmed that none of the speakers at the DNC said the words “ISIS,” “Islamic,” “terror,” “terrorist” or “terrorism” on Monday.
“We need to change our foreign policy to focus on defeating and destroying ISIS, a word you didn’t hear last night at the Democratic convention. You didn’t hear it. They don’t want to talk about it,” Trump said at the Veterans of Foreign Wars National Convention.
He continued, “Because in a very true way they really established ISIS because of weakness. The people in this room know better than anybody else what I mean by weakness.”
The DNC did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Trump has previously accused both President Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, the presumptive Democratic nominee and former secretary of state, as being behind the rise of ISIS.
“They’ve created ISIS. Clinton created ISIS with Obama,” Trump said while campaigning in January.
Trump has since repeated that claim about Clinton more recently, telling CBS in a “60 Minutes” interview that Clinton “is responsible for ISIS.” Trump has offered little to back up that claim other than blaming Clinton’s “stupid policies.”
Trump’s running mate, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, also knocked Democrats during the VFW convention.
“Not one of them named ISIS by name. This man,” Pence said, motioning toward Trump, “will name our enemies without apology and he will defeat them.”
