Barack Obama
Barack ObamaReuters

US President Barack Obama responded to controversial remarks from Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee on Sunday, saying the Iran deal "will take the Israelis and march them to the door of the oven."

“[It] would be considered ridiculous if it weren’t so sad," Obama stated, at a news conference in Ethiopia. 

“Maybe this is just an effort to push Mr. Trump out of the headlines,” he added, “but it is not the kind of leadership that is needed in America right now.”

Obama also lashed out at other insults hurled at him and his administration. 

“We’ve had a sitting senator call [Secretary of State] John Kerry ‘Pontius Pilate,’ ” Obama said. “We’ve had a sitting senator who also happens to be running for president suggest that I’m the leading state sponsor of terrorism. These are leaders in the Republican Party."

"It is not the kind of leadership that is needed in America right now," he added. 

Jewish democrats have also been outraged over the remarks, and have called for Huckabee to apologize. 

According to Breitbart, Huckabee has the highest favorability rating of all Republican candidates running for president in 2016.