10 attacks Obama unleashed on Trump, GOP in speech; Obama: How hard is it to say Nazis are bad?....

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10 attacks Obama unleashed on Trump, GOP in midterm speech

https://www.cnn.com/2018/09/07/politics/obama-list-of-attacks-republicans-trump/index.html?utm_medium=social&utm_source=twCNNp&utm_content=2018-09-07T20%3A30%3A03&utm_term=image



Updated 8:00 PM ET, Fri September 7, 2018


Current Time 0:47
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Duration Time 0:47


Source: CNN
Obama: How hard is it to say Nazis are bad? 00:47

Washington (CNN)Former President Barack Obama spent a sizable amount of time in a speech he gave in Illinois on Friday criticizing Republicans in Congress and President Donald Trump, while stressing the importance of voting in the fast-approaching midterm elections.

Trump quickly responded on Friday, telling a crowd in Fargo, North Dakota, that he "fell asleep" watching Obama's speech.
The Republican National Committee, for its part, responded to Obama's speech by saying, "President Obama stepped back into the spotlight to make the case that our country is on the wrong track."

"2016 is over, but President Obama is still dismissing the millions of voters across the country who rejected a continuation of his policies in favor of President Trump's plan for historic tax cuts, new jobs and economic growth," RNC spokesperson Ellie Hockenbury said in a statement. "Democrats may have a new resistor-in-chief on the campaign trail, but they'll need more than a message of resist and obstruct to win this November."


Here are some of the Obama's sharpest attacks on Trump and the Republican Party in his speech at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign:


1. "What happened to the Republican Party?"

The former Democratic President hit Trump and Republicans hard on a variety of issues including health care, voting rights, campaign finance laws, and the economy, arguing that some policies GOP leaders are pursuing today aren't conservative.
The former President questioned the GOP's approach to foreign policy, including its position on Russia, challenging climate change science, and embracing of conspiracy theories including those "surrounding Benghazi or my birth certificate."


2. "The politics of division and resentment and paranoia has unfortunately found a home in the Republican Party."
Obama argued that today's generation is the most diverse, "conditions that are ripe for exploitation by politicians who have no compunction and no shame about tapping into America's dark history of racial and ethnic and religious division."


3. "Republicans who know better in Congress, and they're there -- they're quoted saying, 'Yeah, we know this is kind of crazy' -- are still bending over backwards to shield this behavior from scrutiny or accountability or consequence, seem utterly unwilling to find the backbone to safeguard the institutions that make our democracy work."



He slammed congressional Republicans for not acting as a check on the Executive Branch.
4. "They're not doing us a service by actively promoting 90% of the crazy stuff that's coming out of this White House, and saying 'Don't worry, we're preventing the other 10%.' That's not how things are supposed to work. This is not normal."
Obama addressed the recent controversy within the White House surrounding The New York Times op-ed written by an anonymous senior Trump administration official. The op-ed author claimed there was a "resistance" of senior officials working in the White House to "frustrate parts of his agenda and his worst inclinations." Obama argued that this "not how our democracy is supposed to work." ...................