Tag: Pres. Obama

Obama casts Trump as threat to democracy

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Former President Obama on Wednesday warned Americans that democracy is at stake in November’s election, admonishing President Trump as categorically unfit for the job and pleading with voters to back his onetime vice president. 

“I am also asking you to believe in your own ability — to embrace your own responsibility as citizens — to make sure that the basic tenets of our democracy endure,” Obama said from the Museum of the American Revolution in Philadelphia, where he was flanked by the text of the U.S. Constitution. “Because that’s what’s at stake right now. Our democracy.” 

Obama used Wednesday’s speech and its symbolic backdrop to frame the upcoming election in stark terms. He warned against complacency, arguing that cynicism and apathy in the face of Trump’s attacks on democratic norms would cause the entire system to wither away “until there’s no democracy at all.” Continue reading.

Ex-RNC Chair Torches McConnell’s Claim Obama ‘Should’ve Kept His Mouth Shut’

Michael Steele noted that Trump “has yet to keep ‘his mouth shut’” about Obama.

Former Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele rebuked Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Tuesday after McConnell labeled former President Barack Obama as “classless” for criticizing his successor’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic.

McConnell had declared Monday that Obama “should have kept his mouth shut” about President Donald Trump’s response to the health crisis. But Steele disagreed, tweeting that the former president is entitled to voice his view. He also noted that Trump has “yet to keep ‘his mouth shut’” about Obama.

The president has persistently attempted to blame Obama for testing failures and a shortage of medical supplies during the pandemic and has this week peddled a fringe theory accusing his predecessor of “the biggest political crime in American history” while declining to specify what that alleged crime would be. Continue reading.

Obama endorses Biden

Axios logoFormer President Barack Obama endorsed Joe Biden, his former vice president, in a video released Tuesday.

Why it matters: Obama, following in the footsteps of other recent former presidents, chose to let the crowded Democratic primary process play out and not offer an endorsement until voters chose their presumptive nominee.

  • Biden leaned heavily on his strong relationship with Obama and his record as vice president throughout the primary race while still acknowledging that he needed to “earn” Obama’s endorsement.
  • Obama’s endorsement comes one day after Biden’s final rival in the race, Bernie Sanders, offered his own endorsement. Continue reading.

Obama rejects comparison between Trump’s immigration policy and his own, encourages protests

The following article by Juliet Ellperin was posted on the Washington Post website January 30, 2017:

Then-President Barack Obama holds a year-end news conference in Washington, D.C., Dec. 16, 2016. SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images

Trump has said that his move to ban the entry of migrants from seven Muslim-majority countries into the United States, and to suspend temporarily the admission of refugees, was based in part on a decision in 2011 by then-President Obama to ban the admission of Iraqis to the country after evidence surfaced that two Iraqis seeking resettlement had been linked to terrorist activity in their homeland. The Obama and Trump administrations also identified the same seven countries as harboring terrorism threats. Continue reading “Obama rejects comparison between Trump’s immigration policy and his own, encourages protests”