Listen as Larry spoke with Steve Emerson, Executive Director of The Investigative Project on Terrorism, regarding President Trump’s speech in Saudi Arabia.
During the interview, Emerson addressed the differences between President Trump and President Obama’s trips overseas:
O’Connor: Am I overstating the case? I thought it was a critically important speech that the President gave in Riyadh.
Emerson: I think it was the most important speech of his presidency and I thought he hit a home run, maybe even a grand slam home run.
O’Connor: What made this speech so good? What made it so different than the lecture President Obama gave 8 years ago?
Emerson: Well, the one that Obama gave was called, ‘The Apology Tour’. He didn’t go to Israel on that one. And number two, in that speech Obama gave he apologized for every transgression the U.S. committed since it’s founding basically. You know we were responsible for everything that went wrong in the Middle East, never telling Muslim nations that their own destiny was in their hands. And they were responsible for either their lack of human rights or for the terrorism they were committing. And in this case, the President squarely put the responsibility on the nations themselves, told them it was practiced in their mosques and drive them out of there, you’ve got to take responsibility. He uttered the phrase, ‘Islamist’ and ‘Islamic’ terrorism. The media was making a big deal out of the fact that he used the word ‘Islamist’. There’s really no difference. This is the first time ever a President has used that term in front of a Muslim audience in a Muslim country. Confronted them directly on the very issues that Obama refused to confront any Muslims nation on. So I thought it was a great speech. And he also praised the religion itself. It wasn’t just a smack down. But he did not shy away at all from the hard issues of Muslim extremism being propagated and being the primary component of the motivational factor for Islamic terrorism. And he squarely put it on the shoulders of those countries or the mosques in those countries or the educational centers that were spawning these terrorists.
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