Donald Trump Explains Calling Obama the ‘Founder of ISIS’ as Sarcasm

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump tweeted early this morning that he was being sarcastic when he called President Obama the "founder of ISIS," despite standing by the original comments multiple times over the past two days.

“Ratings challenged @CNN reports so seriously that I call President Obama (and Clinton) ‘the founder’ of ISIS, & MVP,” he tweeted. “THEY DON'T GET SARCASM?”

Trump insisted over and over Thursday that he had meant literally that Obama founded the terrorist organization.

“I call President Obama and Hillary Clinton the founders of ISIS. They are the founders,” Trump said at a National Association of Home Builders event in Miami Thursday morning.

"He is the founder in a true sense," he said in the Florida rally Thursday night.

And when pressed to clarify in interviews Thursday, Trump insisted he had said what he meant.

"No, I meant he's the founder of ISIS. I do," he told conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt Thursday when pressed on whether he actually meant that Obama created the vacuum that led to ISIS.

"I meant exactly that. He's the founder of ISIS," he told the Miami NBC affiliate Thursday night when asked what he meant by the comment.

Obama did not found ISIS. The terrorist group, in its current form, was officially founded by the group's current leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

Trump then mocked the "poor, pathetic" media in a subsequent tweet this morning for being unable to tell when he is being sarcastic.

“It goes without saying that this is a false claim from a presidential candidate with an aversion to the truth and an unprecedented lack of knowledge,” Jake Sullivan, the Clinton campaign’s senior policy adviser, said in a statement Thursday.