Tag: Barack Obama

‘A whole bunch of hooey’: Barack Obama calls out Trump for ‘de-legitimizing our democracy’ with election lies

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When it comes to former President Donald Trump, Barack Obama is an outspoken critic. And when Obama spoke out during a Democratic online fundraiser on Monday, June 28, he slammed Trump for refusing to respect the United States’ peaceful transition of presidential power and continuing to push lies about the 2020 election.

The Guardian reports that Barack Obama said Trump violated a “core tenet” of democracy when he refused to accept the results of the 2020 election and acknowledge now-President Joe Biden as the winner.

Obama said, “What we saw was my successor, the former president, violate that core tenet that you count the votes and then declare a winner — and fabricate and make up a whole bunch of hooey.” Continue reading.

Obama: Voting rights bill must pass before next election

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Former President Obama said Monday that Congress needs to pass voting rights legislation before the 2022 midterm elections, or American democracy could be at risk.

“We can’t wait until the next election because if we have the same kinds of shenanigans that brought about Jan. 6, if we have that for a couple more election cycles, we’re going to have real problems in terms of our democracy long-term,” said Obama.

Speaking on a call with grassroots supporters alongside former Attorney General Eric Holder, Obama said debate over the voting rights bill, known as the For the People Act, was worth it for him to engage in political debate, even as a former president. Continue reading.

Ten years later, Obama and McRaven discuss the meaning of the mission to kill bin Laden

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Ten years have passed since a team of Navy SEALs and Army helicopter pilots flew 162 harrowing miles into Pakistan to kill Osama bin Laden, a daring mission that represented perhaps the U.S. military’s only pure victory in 20 years of mostly unsatisfying war.

Earlier this week, the two men at the center of ordering and overseeing the raid — former president Barack Obama and Ret. Adm. William H. McRaven — gathered at Obama’s Washington, D.C., office to reflect on the operation ahead of its 10th anniversary, which falls on Sunday.

For both men, the meeting was an opportunity to recognize those who had made the mission successful. “The number of people who operated at the very highest levels for a sustained period of time; that’s something I appreciate even more a decade later,” Obama said. Continue reading.

Tucker Carlson Attacks Obama: He’s a ‘Racial Arsonist’ Who ‘Sows Hate’

The Fox News star took offense at the former president calling for stricter gun laws in the wake of yet another senseless mass shooting, accusing Obama of creating extremism.

After completely ignoring the deadly Colorado mass shooting on his show Monday evening, Fox News host Tucker Carlson’s first coverage of the massacre on Tuesday night included an attack on the nation’s first Black president as a “racial arsonist” who “sows hate” and is “creating real extremism.”

Carlson, who somehow made no mention of the Boulder shooting while he was on the air the previous night, kicked off his primetime program on Tuesday by mocking media outlets and prominent figures who initially believed the suspected shooter was a white male. (Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa was born in Syria and raised in Colorado. His family describes him as “very anti-social” and says they believe he’s mentally ill.)

After completely ignoring the deadly Colorado mass shooting on his show Monday evening, Fox News host Tucker Carlson’s first coverage of the massacre on Tuesday night included an attack on the nation’s first Black president as a “racial arsonist” who “sows hate” and is “creating real extremism.”

Carlson, who somehow made no mention of the Boulder shooting while he was on the air the previous night, kicked off his primetime program on Tuesday by mocking media outlets and prominent figures who initially believed the suspected shooter was a white male. (Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa was born in Syria and raised in Colorado. His family describes him as “very anti-social” and says they believe he’s mentally ill.) Continue reading.

Obama: Trump ‘whines that 60 Minutes is too tough’

Our current president, he whines that 60 Minutes is too tough. You think he’s going to stand up to dictators? He thinks Leslie Stahl is a bully,” Obama said.

Just a week ahead of the Nov. 3 election, President Donald Trump and Democrat Joe Biden will criss-cross the country on Tuesday in an intense day of campaigning, with Biden making a thrust into traditional Republican territory in a show of optimism. View the post and video here.

Obama blasts Trump on coronavirus response

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NOTE: This article is provided free of charge by The Washington Post.

Former president Barack Obama delivered an emphatic rebuke of President Trump and his handling of the coronavirus pandemic during campaign stops for Democratic nominee Joe Biden on Wednesday.

At a speech in Philadelphia, Obama said his successor has endangered the country and is “incapable of taking the job seriously.”

“Eight months into this pandemic, cases are rising again across this country,” Obama said. “Donald Trump isn’t suddenly going to protect all of us. He can’t even take the basic steps to protect himself,” Continue reading.

I’m a veteran — and I’m sick of Trump lying about what he did for my health care

Veterans Choice was passed and signed into law by President Barack Obama in 2014.

My pride in my service as a veteran comes from the values the Marines instilled in me. One of those values is honesty, and I feel personally exploited by Donald Trump’s incessant lying about having passed Veterans Choice.

That lying comes close to stolen valor, claiming credit for something that he had nothing to do with, and it is a claim he has reportedly made 150 times so far, with no signs of stopping.

It needs to stop. Continue reading.

The Memo: Obama enters battle, enraging Trump

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Former President Obama returned to the political battlefield with full force on Wednesday — and immediately got under the skin of his successor.

Obama cast President Trump as an existential threat to American democracyduring his speech to the Democratic National Convention. Such an intervention by a former president against his successor is unprecedented in recent history — but merited, in Obama’s view, given the stakes.

“This administration has shown it will tear our democracy down if that’s what it takes to win,” Obama said near the climax of his speech. Continue reading.

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.