Obama Mocks GOP ‘Crack-Up’ and ‘Circus’ During News Conference With Canadian PM

By The Stream Published on March 10, 2016

President Obama used the occasion of a news conference with new Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau Thursday to mock the GOP primary “circus,” the party’s “crack-up” and blame them for the rise of Donald Trump.

He dismissed the argument that the anger within the GOP has anything to do with himself as “novel.” Referring to an op-ed piece by Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal in The Wall Street Journal, he told reporters, “I’m not going to validate some notion that the Republican crackup that’s been taking place is a consequence of the actions I’ve taken.”

Jindal argued that “There would be no Donald Trump, dominating the political scene today if it were not for President Obama. After seven years of the cool, weak and endlessly nuanced ‘no drama Obama,’ voters are looking for a strong leader who speaks in short, declarative sentences.”

Added the former GOP presidential candidate, “You can draw a straight line between a president who dismisses domestic terrorist attacks as incidents of workplace violence and a candidate who wants to ban Muslims from entering the country.”

Republicans Created Trump, Obama Charges

“What you’re seeing within the Republican Party is, to some degree, all of those efforts over a course of time creating an environment where a somebody like a Donald Trump can thrive,” Obama said. “He’s just doing more of what has been done for the last seven and half years.”

He then tied the bellowing billionaire to his rivals. “In fact,” he said, “in terms of his positions on a whole range of issues, they’re not very different from any of the other candidates.” Trump, he said, “may be more provocative” on, for example, immigration. “But they’re not that different.”

Obama urged Republicans to engage in some “introspection” about how “the politics they’ve been engaged in allows the circus we’ve been seeing to transpire.” He also said, “The Republican political elites, and many of the information outlets, social media, news outlets, talk radio, television stations, have been feeding the Republican base for the last seven years a notion that everything I do is to be opposed, that cooperation or compromise somehow is a betrayal.”

This may strike many as a curious sentiment from a man who bypasses Congress with his executive orders, told Republicans right after taking office “I won. Deal with it,” described Republicans as “enemies” and would rather fly off to the SXSW cultural festival tomorrow than honor a Republican first lady by attending her funeral.

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