That Trump would criticize Obama for the 2015 Iran deal that sought to limit Tehran’s ability to develop a nuclear weapon in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions was not remarkable — he has done so repeatedly since running for office. But that he would use his first public remarks more than 12 hours after the Iranian attacks to bash another president with a misleading and incomplete narrative drew immediate outrage from Obama veterans and other Democrats.

“This is another series of despicable lies by President Trump,” former Obama national security adviser Susan E. Rice said on MSNBC. “The fact that three years after taking office he remains obsessed with President Obama shows extreme weakness and insecurity.”

“It’s not enough to frame Iran as our enemy. He needs a domestic enemy and again it’s the Obama Administration,” former Clinton White House press secretary Joe Lockhart wrote on Twitter. “Curious way of bringing the country together, blaming a previous President for financing the terrorism against the United States.”