GOP attacks Obama, but doesn't defend Trump
Leading Republicans took issue with the former president's scathing speech, but none disputed that Trump has threatened core American institutions.
By EDWARD-ISAAC DOVERE 09/09/2018 06:49 PM EDT
Two days in, lots of prominent Republicans have complained about Barack Obama’s speech on Friday calling Donald Trump’s presidency a betrayal of America and a threat to its core — but they haven’t said he’s wrong.
Most prominent on that list is Trump himself, who, for a man his aides have often held up as someone who punches back, has so far said less to attack Obama than he has previously about the FBI, Steve Bannon, LeBron James or pretty much anyone else.
Even the president’s Twitter feed has been relatively quiet, despite rainy days in Washington keeping him off the golf course. He retweeted his social media director Dan Scavino’s post of a video Obama made during an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel’s show a few weeks before the 2016 election, sneering that Trump would never be president. He quoted former Rep. Jason Chaffetz on Fox News saying that Obama (initially misspelling the first name as “Barrack”) had never delivered on the economy like this White House. But since then, Trump has wandered off onto other topics.
Vice President Mike Pence called it “very disappointing” that Obama broke with the recent presidential tradition of not criticizing successors, and in an interview on Fox News on Sunday he scoffed at “the same tired arguments that he and liberals have made over the last eight years” — though he was presumably referring to the last 10 years, since Obama’s first campaign. “The truth is, the American people in 2016 rejected the policy and direction of Barack Obama when they elected President Donald Trump,” Pence said.
Much of Obama’s speech, which launched his campaigning for the midterm elections, was a condemnation of attacking American institutions, journalists, the Justice Department and decades of global leadership while refusing to condemn Nazis or dishonesty. Neither Pence nor other leading Republicans disputed that these are hallmarks of Trump’s presidency.
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https://www.politico.com/story/2018/09/09/gop-attacks-obama-trump-813443
