At a press conference on Monday, President Obama criticized those who have called for more invasive strategies in the United States and elsewhere to combat ISIS. “If folks want to pop off and have opinions about what they want to do, present a specific plan,” he said.

According to The Guardian, reporters urged Obama to “take out these bastards.”

“What I am not interested in doing is posing, or pursuing some notion of American leadership or America winning or whatever other slogans they come up with,” Obama said, making a clear reference to Donald Trump’s most reliable campaign rhetoric. “I’m too busy for that.” On Monday, Trump said that mosques should be monitored and possibly shut down.

Obama categorically ruled out sending troops into Syria, CNBC reports, calling it a “mistake.”

“Not because our military could not march into...Raqqa and temporarily clear out ISIL, but because we would see a repetition of what we’ve seen before,” he said. “If you do not have local populations that are committed to inclusive governance and who are pushing back against ideological extremes, then they resurface.”

“Let’s assume we send 50,000 troops into Syria. What happens when there is a terrorist attack generated from Yemen? Do we then send more troops into there?”

Obama also called recent proposals that Christians should be admitted to the United States but not Muslims “shameful,” The Guardian reports.

“The people who are fleeing Syria are the most harmed by terrorism,” he said. “They are the most vulnerable as a consequence of civil war and strife. They are parents. They are children. They are orphans.

“It is very important...that we do not close our hearts to these victims of such violence and somehow start equating the issue of refugees with the issue of terrorism.”

At least 18 Republican governors and one Democratic governor have asked the State department not to relocate Syrian refugees in their states. “The fact is that we need for appropriate vetting and I don’t think orphans under 5 are being—should be admitted into the United States at this point,” New Jersey governor and presidential candidate Chris Christie said in an interview.

H/T VSB. Photo via AP Images. Contact the author of this post: brendan.oconnor@gawker.com.