Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, a potential Republican candidate for president in 2016, sharply criticized President Obama’s views on terrorism on Tuesday after an American woman kidnapped by ISIS was confirmed killed.
Earlier Tuesday, the family of 26-year-old American Kayla Mueller announced that they had confirmed her death.
“It’s time that President Obama acknowledges the grave threat posed to all Americans by name, and starts putting our safety above his far-left ideology,” Huckabee said in a statement.
“Kayla’s sacrifice should not be in vain,” Huckabee added.
“Now that Kayla is the fourth U.S. hostage to die while in ISIS captivity, with the past three brutally beheaded, everyone should be reminded that this country remains at war,” Huckabee said. “And it is not a war of our choosing.”
Obama has been taking heat this week after saying, in an interview with a liberal website, that the media has overhyped the threat of terrorism.
“Do you think the media sometimes overstates the level of alarm people should have about terrorism and this kind of chaos, as opposed to a longer-term problem of climate change and epidemic disease?” the liberal writer Matthew Yglesias asked Obama in an interview posted at Vox.com.
“Absolutely,” Obama replied. “And I don’t blame the media for that. What’s the famous saying about local newscasts, right? If it bleeds, it leads, right? You show crime stories and you show fires, because that’s what folks watch, and it’s all about ratings.”
In a statement about Mueller’s death, Obama said Tuesday: “On behalf of the American people, Michelle and I convey our deepest condolences to Kayla’s family – her parents, Marsha and Carl, and her brother Eric and his family – and all of those who loved Kayla dearly. At this time of unimaginable suffering, the country shares in their grief.”