Despite telling reporters at a press conference in Argentina that the Islamic State is his “number one priority,” Barack Obama downplayed the group’s threat to national and world security. “They’re not an existential threat to us,” he later said. No, the U.S. will not cease to exist because terrorists attack places like Brussels, but Obama is taking literalism to the extreme. His two statements don’t compute. If the Islamic State isn’t an existential threat, why is it Obama’s number one priority? Surely the community organizer can find something more pressing in the world to focus on — like climate change. “We defeat them in part by saying you are not strong, you are weak,” Obama said. Boom. The war’s over. Let’s bring in more Syrian refugees.

While the American people are concerned that New York City might be the site of the next Paris-like attack, or their suburbs experience something like what happened in San Bernardino, Obama hardly gives radical Islamic jihad the time of day. He’s pushing to close Guantanamo Bay prison through attrition by releasing these very jihadis. Yet the Department of Defense told lawmakers Wednesday that Gitmo’s released prisoners often return to the battlefield and at least one killed Americans. Such considerations don’t deter Obama, who violated the law when he released five of those prisoners in exchange for deserter Bowe Bergdahl in 2014.

Commentator Charles Krauthammer concluded Obama’s “top priority” comment was given “by rote — because he knows he’s supposed to say it.” Krauthammer added, “He thinks [the Islamic State] is the background noise of our time.” Rather than confront and fight this evil, Obama routinely dismisses the threat from the JV team, as if doing so means he has it “contained.”