President Obama refused to tie the bloody attack on a gay nightclub Sunday to Islamic terror and said "no definitive judgement" had been made on the motive.

At least 50 people are dead and 53 wounded following an attack on the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida, in which the shooter shouted, "Allahu Akbar!"

It was the worst act of terror on U.S. soil since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

But Obama made no mention of "Islam," "Muslim" or "Islamic terror" in his televised address to the nation.

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"We know enough to say this is an act of terror and an act of hate," Obama said, framing the attack as a hate crime against gays. He also used the attack to promote his gun-control policies.

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"We have to decide if that is the kind of country we want to be," he said, after saying the killer should not have been able to purchase a high-powered rifle.

"What is clear is he is a person filled with hatred," Obama said of the Muslim terrorist, Omar Seddique Mateen.

Watch Obama's address:

Within minutes of Obama's speech, ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack on social media.

"The facts don't seem to matter to this administration," former CIA Director James Woolsey told Fox News.

DHS agent Philip Haney's blockbuster revelations of the federal government's appeasement of supremacist Islam are told in his new book "See Something Say Nothing"

"The president's speech today is a national and international disgrace," said former federal prosecutor Larry Klayman, founder of Judicial Watch.

"Being born to a Muslim father and schooled in madrassa schools in Indonesia, and having as his friends and supporters domestic Muslim terrorist sympathizers like Rev. Louis Farrakhan of the Nation of Islam, President Barack Hussein Obama refuses to fight much less address Islamic terrorism in any meaningful way," Klayman said.

"It is no wonder that his speech today refused to even use the word 'radical Islamic terrorism' much less 'Islamic terrorism,' despite the shooter being of Afghani origin, and despite what the FBI revealed were his ties to ISIS," Klayman added.

Just minutes prior to the deadly attack, Mateen called 9-1-1 and pledged allegiance to ISIS.

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Mateen, 29, of Port St. Lucie, Florida, was born to immigrant parents who came to the United States from Afghanistan.

Former President Ronald Reagan brought several thousand Afghan "freedom fighters" to the U.S. as refugees in the early 1980s.

The U.S., in fact, continues to bring Afghan Muslims to America as refugees. Since the Sept. 11 attacks, the U.S. has imported 12,168 Afghan refugees and resettled them in dozens of American cities and towns, according to the U.S. State Department's Refugee Processing Center database.

Mateen's father, Seddique Mateen, has openly voiced his support for the Taliban in Youtube videos, the Daily Mail reported.

"This is just another example of why we need a total ban on Muslim immigration," Klayman said. "There simply are no constitutional rights to persons who are not citizens or permanent residents. While the Muslim terrorist in Orlando was an American citizen, we need to limit the nation from taking any more Muslim immigrants who someday could also become citizens or permanent residents. It's also time to deport all Muslims who are in the United States illegally and on student and other types of temporary visas. We are at war and need to now act accordingly, no matter what President Obama continues to attempt to cover up given his Muslim heritage and connections."

Mateen was reportedly registered to vote in 2006 as a Democrat, WND has learned from high-placed government sources. He was investigated twice by the FBI, in 2013 and 2014, for terrorist connections but each time the investigations were "inconclusive," an FBI spokesman said.

The first time, it was co-workers who called authorities to tell them that Mateen had made radical statements alluding to Islam, while the second time he was investigated for ties to an American suicide bomber overseas.

Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., and Sen. Bill Nelson, R-Fla., both of whom were likely briefed by intelligence officials, also indicated that Mateen had connections with ISIS.

An imam who spoke at the Sunday morning press conference hosted by authorities in Orlando is a known Hamas sympathizer who has in the past blamed America for the 9/11 attacks.

Imam Muhammad Musr, president of the Islamic Society of Central Florida, said Sunday: "No one could have predicted this, no one could have prepared for it. This could have happened anywhere. It's like lightning."

"I want to caution many in the media from rushing to judgment and from sensationalizing the story. We don't want the story to be shifted from the focus where it is."

Musri hosted a fundraiser for Hamas in 2009.

Phil Haney, a recently retired Homeland Security officer and author of the new whistleblower book "See Something Say Nothing: A Homeland Security Officer Exposes the Government's Submission to Jihad," said the media and government narrative needs to change in a direction away from political correctness if the U.S. is to defeat Islamic terror.

"He was highly trained, and he was very methodical. He didn't waste many shots. He had a very precise, methodical approach to this," Haney said of Mateen.

Mateen reportedly screamed "Allahu Akbar!" as he shot his victims in the nightclub. Authorities confirmed he had pledged his allegiance to ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

Later Sunday, Reuters reported of a second attack by a jihadist against a gay pride parade in Los Angeles had been foiled. A Muslim suspect was stopped with weapons, ammunition and explosives in his car heading to the parade.

Haney said the initial response of law enforcement Sunday morning was telling, saying that the attack may have been either a domestic or international terror incident.

"There is no distinction between international or domestic terrorism; that's a false narrative," Haney told WND.

This is the same type of obfuscation that occurred following the attack on San Bernardino last December.

"There is no disconnect between what's happening here and what's happening in the international arena," Haney. "It's the same global jihad movement."

The other aspect being ignored by the mass media coverage of today's terrorist attack is the Shariah law connections visa vie homosexuality.

"It carries a severe penalty," said Haney, an expert on Islamist ideology at the DHS before retiring last year.

Homosexuality is one of the seven "Hudud" punishment crimes under Islam, Haney said.

All Muslims are obligated by the doctrine of the faith to "enjoin the good and forbid the evil."

"This means they are obligated to take action unilaterally against what is perceived as 'evil' – every Muslim is a potential vigilante under this doctrine."

"And, of course, we've been warned this would happen," Haney said. "It's Ramadan."

Gays 'must die,' says imam at Orlando mosque two months before attack:

Mateen's father said his son had recently visited Miami and had "a problem" with watching two men kissing, but that the attack had nothing to do with religion. A local imam in Orlando was also trotted out by authorities at the 10:15 a.m. press conference who said the media "should not sensationalize" the story and "shift" it to Islam. It was merely a local "tragedy" that took place in Orlando and should not be viewed as part of any wider ideological attack, the imam said.

Haney said this is standard obfuscation that occurs in the wake of every Islamic terror attack. It was reminiscent of the comments by CAIR, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, after the attack on San Bernardino, California, that killed 14 people on Dec. 3 at an office Christmas party.

"What are you doing in Miami if you don't like to see that?" Haney said. "So you go down there to Miami knowing this and you get offended and then you respond by killing them? [It] is the same reaction of Islamists throwing homosexuals off of buildings in the Middle East. It all goes back to the practice of Shariah law."

Truth about Shariah and gays:

Mateen, a trained security officer with a statewide firearms license who was previously on the FBI watch list, managed to slip into a nightclub and shoot up the place.

Mateen not only was born to parents from the jihadist-infested Afghanistan, but he previously had a wife from Uzbekistan.

"Political correctness wins once again," King told Fox News. "We need to start treating people for what they are. All this political correctness stuff didn't come up until after 9/11, when CAIR came in and started (making demands about profiling Muslims)."

King said he encourages Americans to read the Quran "and see what's going on."

Haney has argued the same, saying that the White House focus on political correctness is focusing on the protection of Muslims at the expense of American lives.

"We need to take the TV remote and change the channel and say, 'Look, we're not going to watch this channel anymore. We're going to watch another one, where the focus is on Shariah law and the conflict between Shariah and the U.S. Constitution. There are multiple points of conflict between Shariah and the Constitution, and or state and civil law, and one of them is the whole gay issue," Haney told WND. "The LGBT movement is in direct conflict with Shariah law, and we just saw that in Orlando. We've got to introduce Shariah law into the equation. You need to talk about the American Constitution and use that as a safe place, a strong foundation, to stand on – are they going to attack you for being an Islamophobe or for defending the Constitution? – and contrast that to the Shariah."

The war is bring brought home to America and it's "come to a head," Haney said. It doesn't matter if the White House refuses to acknowledge that a war exists.

"Whose version of civil rights and civil liberties are you going to choose? America's and the U.S. Constitution, or Shariah, which does not include civil rights for the practicing LGBT communities," Haney said.

"Our government and the media are just desperate to leave this part out of the national discussion. They have been really good at keeping it on the same channel over and over. Lone wolf, hate crime, domestic terror," he added. "Start talking about the conflicts between Shariah and the U.S. Constitution.

"Instead what you hear is Islam is a 'religion of peace,' this has 'nothing to do with Islam,' it's a 'tragedy for the community' but it has nothing to do with Islam. Don't sensationalize it."

The fact that Mateen was placed on a terrorist watch list and then taken off after an arbitrary "time limit" on the investigation is also troubling, Haney said.

"That time limit sets off a whole cascade of very troubling observations for how we're limiting our law enforcement," he said. "That's like planting a corn row and screaming at it to grow faster and if the corn doesn't grow faster you dig up the whole garden."

Florida Sen. Bill Nelson said "it is believed there is some connection to ISIS." He said that information is from intelligence committee staff, not the FBI.

ISIS spokesman Al-Adnani had called for attacks in the U.S. during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which opened last week.

"What is happening to America? We are going to have to dig down deep and ask ourselves who are we as a people," Nelson said.

President Obama addressed the nation Sunday at 1:30 p.m. in a nationally televised speech about the Orlando attack.

His comments focused on assault weapons, but he never mentioned the words "Islam," "Islamic" or "Muslim" even once.

Obama in the past has refrained from the term "Islamic terrorism," opting instead for the less precise language of "violent extremism."

The year 2015 saw the highest incidence of jihadist attacks on U.S. soil since 9/11. Now 2016 has been stained with the same type of bloody jihadist attack.

When politicians and law enforcement equivocate and fail to call these attacks "Islamic terror," they give the Islamists time to react, Haney said.

"They are signaling them to get your folks setup so you can keep putting out the same false message you're always putting out," he said. "The same thing happened in the San Bernardino attack."

"We are losing this war," terrorism expert Dr. Sebastian Gorka told Fox News' Brett Baer. "People are massacred on U.S. soil and the administration is worried about Islamophobia. Clearly something isn't working."

Gorka said the White House and all levels of government "need to stop using words like 'shocking.' Nobody should be shocked by this. It's not an accident. It's war against Americans. I plead with the people in our government. We need to stop talking about this maybe being a hate crime. This is an ideological attack against this country brought on by the political correctness of the White House. I plead with them, stop with the political correctness, or we're going to have more Americans getting killed."

Danny Colson, a former FBI assistant director, echoed the same frustration with the Obama administration.

"We're at war," Colson told Fox. "We need to start acting like we're at war."

This brings to mind the famous quote from Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky, recalled by former CIA Director James Woolsey Sunday.

"You may not be interested in war but war could be interested in you," Trotsky said.

"So anyone who gravitates toward workplace violence should be greeted with skepticism," said Woolsey. "This could well be Islamic terrorism."

He said the FBI cannot keep up with all of the ISIS and other terrorist plots going on across the U.S. There are more than 900 active Investigations in all 50 states.

Woolsey said "this doesn’t' have to be a terrorist cell or organized for this to be done by a jihadi. People can have very firmly held beliefs without being part of some cell. The search for the cell could be fruitless, this could well be Islamist terror without there being those kinds of connections."

Many of the 53 hospitalized victims are critically injured.

Indications from FBI that suspect had "he had leanings toward the Islamic ideology" at first briefing but then walked that back at the second press conference at 10:15.

The Orlando imam called to the podium by authorities Sunday said he didn't want the story to be "sensationalized."

But the numbers – 50 dead and 53 wounded – are rather sensational, said King.