President Obama forcefully condemned Donald Trump on Sunday for "helping" Islamic State militants by dividing Americans with his rhetoric on terrorism.

"Look, if we start engaging in the kinds of proposals that we've heard from Mr. Trump or some of his surrogates like Mr. Gingrich, where we start suggesting that we would apply religious tests to who could come in here, that we are screening Muslim Americans differently than we would others, then we are betraying that very thing that makes America exceptional," Obama told CBS' John Dickerson in a pre-taped interview.

The president claimed that Trump's comments about surveilling mosques and barring foreign-born Muslims from entering the U.S. are precisely what radical jihadists want because it instills fear in Americans and further disunites the country.

Obama encouraged "political leaders, religious leaders, business leaders, all of us to send a very clear signal that we are not going to be divided in that fashion."

"I think the kinds of rhetoric that we've heard too often, from Mr. Trump and others, is ultimately helping do ISIL's work for us," he added.

Obama's comments follow Trump's speech last week at the Republican National Convention, during which he suggested "America is far less safe — and the world is far less stable — than when Obama made the decision to put Hillary Clinton in charge of America's foreign policy."

"I am certain it is a decision he truly regrets," Trump told the GOP delegation.