Obama compares GOP candidates to Internet trolls

President Barack Obama on Monday chastised the Republican presidential field, in particular Donald Trump and Mike Huckabee, for "outrageous attacks" that grow out of an Internet culture that turns political discourse into an ugly war of words.

During a news conference in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, Obama was asked to respond to a remark that Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor, made over the weekend comparing a landmark nuclear deal with Iran to the Holocaust. Huckabee said that in sealing the deal, the President "will take the Israelis and march them to the door of the oven" – a reference to the Nazi concentration camps.

According to several news reports, the president said Huckabee's comments were "part of just a general pattern that we've seen that would be considered ridiculous if it weren't so sad."

"Maybe this is just to push Mr. Trump out of the headlines but it's not the kind of leadership that is needed for America right now," he added. He also pointed back to Trump's remarks deriding the war record of Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, and said, "The Republican party is shocked and yet that arises out of a culture where those kind of outrageous attacks have become far too commonplace and yet circulated nonstop through the Internet and talk radio and news outlets."

"We are creating a culture that is not conducive to good policy or good politics. The American people deserve better. Certainly presidential debates deserve better," Obama added.

Without mentioning names, the president blasted congressional Republicans for playing "fast and loose" with the facts of the Iran deal. He cited presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz's allegation that lifting sanctions on Iran would make America “the leading global financiers of radical Islamic terrorism” and Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton's comparison of Secretary of State John Kerry to Pontius Pilate.

This hyperbolic tone, Obama suggested, is far out of bounds from past traditions of a bipartisan American foreign policy.

"These are leaders in the Republican Party," the president said. "Part of what historically has made America great is particularly when it comes to foreign policy, there's been a recognition that these issues are too serious, that issues of war and peace are of such grave concern, of such consequence, that we don't play fast and loose that way."