During comments in the Oval Office Monday morning, President Barack Obama refused yet again to refer to Orlando shooter Omar Mateen as a radical Islamic terrorist.
“We’re stilling looking at all the motivations of the killer,” Obama stated. “It’s important to emphasize that we’re still at the preliminary stages of the investigation, and there’s a lot more that we have to learn.”
Obama added, “The one thing that we can say is that this is being treated as a terrorist investigation.”
ORLANDO, FLORIDA – JUNE 12: FBI agents seen outside of Pulse nightclub after a fatal shooting and hostage situation on June 12, 2016 in Orlando (Getty Images)
“It appears that the shooter was inspired by various extremist information that was disseminated over the Internet,” he explained. “All those materials are currently being searched, exploited, so we will have a better sense of the pathway that the killer took in making a decision to launch this attack.”
On Monday, Hillary Clinton broke from the White House narrative and called (RELATED: Hilary Breaks With Obama, Now Calls Orlando Attack ‘Radical Islamism’)
“I have clearly said that we face terrorist enemies who use Islam to justify slaughtering innocent people,” the former And, you know, whether you call it radical jihadism or radical Islamism, I think they mean the same thing, I’m happy to say either.”