Obama Gives Rare Oval Office Address in Prime Time

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama says he understands why Americans are worried about the threat of terrorism but is reassuring Americans the U.S. will overcome it.

In his televised address Sunday night, Obama said “we will prevail by being strong and smart.” He said Americans cannot give into fear.

The president also said it’s clear the two killers in the California shootings had gone down the “dark path of radicalization.”

He’s called the shooting an “act of terrorism designed to kill innocent people.”

Obama says the killers had stockpiled weapons and ammunition. But he says there’s no evidence the killers were directed by a terrorist organization overseas or were part of a broader network in the U.S.

Obama misspoke when he said that the female assailant in the San Bernardino shootings, Tashfeen Malik, came to the United States under the visa waiver program.

Malik came to the U.S. on a K-1 visa, known as a “fiancée visa,” when she moved to the U.S. to marry Syed Farook. The White House has acknowledged the error.

Two Republican presidential candidates who want to replace President Barack Obama in the White House are not impressed with his Oval Office speech on the terrorist threat.

Florida Sen. Marco Rubio says people are growing scared because “we have a president who is completely overwhelmed” by the terrorist threat. He said on Fox News that he heard nothing new in the speech except a call for gun control, which would make no difference. And he said the president may have made things worse, rather than making things better. He said the Islamic State group is rapidly expanding its influence around the world.

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, a rival for the GOP nomination, said “Obama has finally been forced to abandon the political fantasy he has perpetuated for years that the threat of terrorism was receding.”

Bush said it’s time to remove the constraints from the military and intelligence operations and “put in place an aggressive strategy to defeat ISIS and radical Islamic terrorism as I have proposed.”