President Obama explains why he believes that Donald Trump will never become president. VPC
President Obama answers a question during a press conference following a meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) at the Sunnylands estate in Rancho Mirage, Calif.(Photo: MANDEL NGAN, AFP/Getty Images)
Republican primary voters are venting their frustration by supporting Donald Trump, President Obama said Tuesday. But Obama said he has confidence that the American people won't ultimately trust the billionaire reality show star with the nuclear launch codes.
"I continue to believe Mr. Trump will not be president, and the reason is because I have a lot of faith in the American people. And I think they recognize that being president is a serious job. It's not hosting a talk show or a reality show. It's not promotion. It's not marketing. It's hard," Obama said at a news conference in California Tuesday.
Obama has been critical of Trump before especially on his anti-Muslim rhetoric. But after hosting a summit of leaders from 10 Southeast Asian countries on Tuesday, Obama gave a more specific critique of Trump's foreign policy credentials.
The job of president, Obama said, requires working world leaders in a way that "gives people confidence that you know the facts, and you know their names, and you know where they are on a map, and you know something about their history." Trump has previously stumbled over questions about foreign policy.
"Whoever is standing where I'm standing now has the nuclear codes with them, and can order 21-year-olds into a firefight, and has to make sure that the banking system doesn't collapse," he said. "The American people are pretty sensible, and I think they'll make a sensible choice in the end."
Obama acknowledged that Trump has had some appeal in early primary states, but predicted that he would fade as the general election gets nearer.
"Yeah, during primaries people vent, and they express themselves, and it seems like entertainment, and oftentimes it's reported just like entertainment. But as you get closer, reality has a way of intruding," he said.
Obama also noted that he hasn't just been critical of Trump. "I mean, I find it interesting that everybody's focused on Trump, primarily just because he says in more interesting ways what the other candidates are saying as well," he said. "He may up the ante in anti-Muslim sentiment, but if you look at what the other Republican candidates have said, that's pretty troubling, too. He may express strong anti-immigration sentiment, but you've heard that from the other candidates as well."
Referring to Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., he said, "You've got a candidate who sponsored a bill, that I supported, to finally solve the immigration problem, and he's running away from it as fast as he can."
On the Democratic side, Obama continued to play down the differences between Sen. Bernie Sanders and his former Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton. He said they agree more than they disagree, and that their campaign messages were largely about tactics.
"They believe in climate change. They think science matters. They think that it's important for us to have some basic regulations, to keep our air clean and our water clean, and to make sure that banks aren't engaging in excesses that can result in the kind of thing that we saw in 2007 and 2008. So there's a broad convergence of interests around those issues," he said.
I think Trump is serious whether he has thought about an eight year gig is something else. Being president for eight years would seriously interrupt his business