President Barack Obama on Tuesday called out prominent Republicans for continuing to endorse Donald Trump in his bid for the White House.
“I think the Republican nominee is unfit to serve as president. I said so last week and he keeps on proving it,” Obama said on Tuesday during a joint press conference with Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong at the White House.
Obama said Trump is “woefully underprepared” to be president. “He doesn’t appear to have basic knowledge on critical issues in Europe, in the Middle East, in Asia,” Obama said.
Obama said this opinion of Trump is shared by prominent Republicans.
“I think what’s been interesting is the repeated denunciations of his statements by leading Republicans including the speaker of the House, the Senate majority leader and prominent Republicans like John McCain,” he said. “The question I think that they have to ask themselves is, if you are repeatedly having to say, in very strong terms, that what he has said is unacceptable, why are you still endorsing him?”
At some point, Republicans should realize that Trump has gone too far and that the things he says indicates he “doesn’t have the judgment, the temperament the understanding to occupy the most powerful position in the world,” Obama said.
While Obama said he has disagreed with former Republican presidents on policy issues, he “didn’t have a doubt that they could function as president.”
Obama explained that had he lost to Mitt Romney or McCain, he certainly “would have been disappointed,” but that he would have conceded and had the confidence that they would “abide by certain norms and rules and common sense, will observe basic decency.”
Later, Trump responded in a statement on Facebook, alleging that Obama and Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton “have single-handedly destabilized the Middle East” and that “we need change now.”
STATEMENT IN RESPONSE TO PRESIDENT OBAMA’S FAILED LEADERSHIP
“Obama-Clinton have single-handedly destabilized the Middle East, handed Iraq, Libya and Syria to ISIS, and allowed our personnel to be slaughtered at Benghazi. Then they put Iran on the path to nuclear weapons. Then they allowed dozens of veterans to die waiting for medical care that never came.
Hillary Clinton put the whole country at risk with her illegal email server, deleted evidence of her crime, and lied repeatedly about her conduct which endangered us all. They released criminal aliens into our country who killed one innocent American after another — like Sarah Root and Kate Steinle — and have repeatedly admitted migrants later implicated in terrorism. They have produced the worst recovery since the Great Depression. They have shipped millions of our best jobs overseas to appease their global special interests. They have betrayed our security and our workers, and Hillary Clinton has proven herself unfit to serve in any government office.
She is reckless with her emails, reckless with regime change, and reckless with American lives. Our nation has been humiliated abroad and compromised by radical Islam brought onto our shores. We need change now.”
-Donald J. Trump
