It’s wrong to describe ISIS as Islamic, since FDR “never declared war on the Catholics,” MSNBC’s Chris Matthews argued Monday night.

Commenting on Sen. Rubio (R-Fla.) describing the fight against ISIS as a “clash of civilizations,” Matthews said this advances what ISIS wants, “to have the Islamic world fight with the Western world.”

“There is [sic] 1.75 billion Islamic people in the world,” Matthews said. “There are Islamic people who are as far from Arab as you and I are far from Arab. They are not Arabs: they happen to be Muslims.

“They live in India, they live in Pakistan, they live in Indonesia,” he continued. ”Why do we want to declare war on them by calling our terrorist opponents Islamic?”

“I don’t think Franklin Roosevelt, as angry as he was at Mussolini, never [sic] declared war on the Catholics,” the MSNBC host concluded. “That would have been a stupid thing to say.”

(Hat tip: NewsBusters)