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Via Yahoo News:

By turns mocking, frustrated and angry, President Obama on Tuesday unleashed a blistering denunciation of Donald Trump, arguing that the presumptive Republican nominee’s rhetoric about Muslims betrays American values and risks helping al-Qaida and the so-called Islamic State.

Obama’s remarks came a day after Trump charged that the president’s refusal to blame attacks like the mass shooting in Orlando on “radical Islam” proved he placed political correctness above the need to keep Americans safe.

The president dismissed Trump’s argument as partisan “yapping,” “a political talking point” and “loose talk and sloppiness” that shows ignorance about how to fight the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL.

“There has not been a moment in my seven and a half years as president where we have not been able to pursue a strategy because we didn’t use the label ‘radical Islam.’ Not once has an adviser of mine said, ‘Man, if we use that phrase, we are going to turn this whole thing around.’ Not once,” Obama said. “Calling a threat by a different name does not make it go away. This is a political distraction.”

Obama, who emphasized that he has previously detailed how “extremist groups have perverted Islam to justify terrorism,” said language like Trump’s would reinforce the claim that terrorists speak for the world’s 1.7 billion Muslims.

“That’s their propaganda; that’s how they recruit. And if we fall into the trap of painting all Muslims with a broad brush, and imply that we are at war with an entire religion, then we are doing the terrorists’ work for them,” Obama scolded.

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