Republican leaders disagree with President Obama on almost everything. Yet, when it comes to discussing presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump, they and the president can sound remarkably similar.
“You’re a great entertainer; you turn on audiences; you’re good before a crowd; you have a lot of Twitter followers. That worked fine for you in the primaries. But now that you are in the general [election], people are looking for a level of seriousness,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told Time Warner on Wednesday.
“So my hope is that he is beginning to pivot and become what I would call a more serious and credible candidate for the highest office in the land,” the Kentuckian continued. “He’s getting closer. Getting closer” to being a credible candidate.
Being unserious is one of the many charges Obama has leveled at the real estate mogul.
“I just want to emphasize the degree to which we are in serious times and this is a really serious job,” Obama told reporters May 6. “This is not entertainment. This is not a reality show. This is a contest for the presidency of the United States.”
McConnell also admitted to ABC June 26 that voters might not take Trump seriously. “The burden, obviously, will be on him to convince people that he can handle this job.”
In May, Obama questioned whether Trump is “equipped” to be commander in chief.
Speaking to reporters June 7, McConnell urged Trump to focus on bread and butter issues instead of making provocative comments.
“And my advice to our nominee would be to start talking about the issues that the American people care about; and to start doing it now.”
Obama was equally dismissive when reporters asked him to weigh in on Trump’s missive about Cinco de Mayo, in which Trump declared his “love” for Hispanics while encouraging voters to try the taco bowls at one of his properties.
“I have no thoughts on Mr. Trump’s tweets,” Obama said. “As a general rule, I don’t pay attention to Mr. Trump’s tweets. And I think that will be true for the next six months, so you can just file that one.”
Speaking about Trump comments that have been characterized as racist, McConnell said they are not helping the Republican Party.
“It’s time to quit attacking various people that you competed with or various minority groups in the country and get on message,” McConnell said in response to a question June 7. “And so I hope that’s what he’ll do. We’re all anxious to hear what he may say next.”
House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., has been even more outspoken, saying numerous times he hopes he’s responding to the last controversial Trump statement on race.
Usually without saying his name, Obama has similarly chastised Trump proposals and offhand remarks related to race.
“Because whatever our differences … we don’t have time for charlatans and we don’t have time for bigotry and we don’t have time for film-flam and we don’t have the luxury of just popping off and saying whatever comes to the tops of our heads,” Obama said a June 25 fundraiser in Seattle for Gov. Jay Inslee, D-Wash.
“Trump clearly needs to change, in my opinion, to win the general election,” McConnell said in his June 7 remarks.
“I couldn’t disagree more with what he had to say,” McConnell told NBC June 5. “All of us came here from somewhere else,” he said about Trump’s assertion that a judge of Mexican heritage should recuse himself from presiding over a lawsuit against Trump because he is biased against the former reality TV star.
“America is a nation of immigrants,” Obama said while in Canada on Wednesday. “Unless you are one of the first Americans, unless you are a Native American, somebody somewhere in your past showed up from someplace else.”
McConnell is not alone in seemingly echoing the president.
On Sunday, GOP Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham both questioned his foreign policy credentials, specifically when it comes to the Middle East.
“When Trump says that he would allow Assad to stay, that tells me that he doesn’t understand the region,” Graham told CBS, referring to Syrian President Bashar Assad. “Mr. Trump needs to rethink that.”
Obama slammed Trump for his worldview when the candidate gave his first lengthy interview on the topic in March. The president repeated his criticism when he was in Japan for the G-7 May 26.
“They are not sure how seriously to take some of his pronouncements,” Obama said of other world leaders. “A lot of the proposals that he’s made display either ignorance of world affairs, or a cavalier attitude, or an interest in getting tweets and headlines instead of actually thinking through what it is that is required to keep America safe and secure and prosperous, and what’s required to keep the world on an even keel.”
