The White House’s references to Donald Trump’s presidential campaign as having a “dustbin of history-like quality” and comparing “The Donald” to a “circus barker” have been retired ahead of Trump’s victory in Indiana and ascension to likely nominee last week.
White House spokesman Josh Earnest has changed course several times in responding to Trump since he launched what originally seemed like a novelty campaign. But as the possibility of Trump landing on the November ballot drew closer to reality, Earnest reverted to his original stance on Trump: Ignore him.
The day before Trump sewed up the nomination, Earnest answered, “I don’t have any comment on that” when asked to opine on Trump’s remark that campaigning for president is harder than being president.
Hours before Trump became the de facto nominee May 3, Earnest declined to chastise Trump and Ted Cruz for coarsening political debate.
Earnest noted that President Obama set a high standard for his own behavior on the campaign trail, “but other candidates will have to set their own standard for their campaign,” he demurred.
When not ignoring Trump, Earnest defers to comments Obama himself makes.
Obama said during a May 2 local TV interview that Trump is not “equipped” to be president. The next day, Earnest had nothing to add.
“The president has himself said before that he doesn’t think that the American people are likely to choose [Trump] to be the next president,” Earnest said. “I think the president was merely repeating that belief.”
Trump and Obama have a long history of verbal sparring, one that Obama engages in differently depending on the situation and Trump’s standing.
When Trump attended the White House correspondents’ dinner in 2011, Obama got his revenge for Trump’s 2008 “birther” flame-fanning by casting Trump as a wacky conspiracy theorist.
“No one is happier to put the birth certificate issue to rest than ‘The Donald,'” Obama said then. Now “he can get back to focusing on the issues that matter like, did we fake the moon landing? What really happened in Roswell? And where are Biggie and Tupac?” Obama rifted.
Obama mocked Trump’s “challenges,” such as deciding which washed up star to kick off of “Celebrity Apprentice.”
“These are the kinds of decisions that would keep me up at night,” Obama jabbed.
When Trump’s candidacy first began picking up steam, Obama ignored him, save calling him on the carpet. Trump’s attack on Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., met with an Obama defense of his one-time opponent.
Trump’s comments arise “out of a culture where those kinds of outrageous attacks have become far too commonplace and circulate nonstop through the Internet and talk radio,” Obama said during a July 27 press conference in Ethiopia.
As Trump’s “one-up” policy proposals, such as going beyond curting immigration and instead banning Muslims, picked up steam, Obama would chastise the entire field and lament the state of politics without naming names.
“And when I hear folks say that, ‘Well, maybe we should just admit the Christians but not the Muslims,’ when I hear political leaders suggesting that there would be a religious test for which person who’s fleeing from a war-torn country is admitted, when some of those folks themselves come from families who benefited from protection when they were fleeing political persecution, that’s shameful,” Obama said during a Nov. 16 press conference in Turkey.
Obama consistently predicts that Trump will never become president when asked about “what-if” scenarios.
“You know, talk to me if he wins,” Obama told NBC Jan. 12.
While in Los Angeles for a fundraiser April 8, Obama reassured the party faithful that a Democrat will win in November.
“And one of you pulled me aside and squeezed me hard and said, ‘Tell me that Mr. Trump is not succeeding you,'” Obama recounted. “And I said, ‘Mr. Trump is not succeeding me.'”
Obama is particularly dismissive of Trump’s foreign policy suggestions. What is the takeaway from Trump’s floating the idea of a nuclear Japan and South Korea?
Such proposals “tell us that the person who made the statements doesn’t know much about foreign policy, or nuclear policy, or the Korean Peninsula, or the world generally,” Obama said after the nuclear summit wrapped up in Washington April 1.
Trump’s plan to prevent illegal immigrants from sending remittances back home? “Half-baked,” “draconian” and “impractical,” Obama responded April 5.
Just days before Trump wrapped up the nomination, Obama let it fly at the same venue he roasted the real estate tycoon in 2011, the White House correspondents’ dinner. However, this time Trump spared himself the indignity by not attending.
“I am a little hurt that he’s not here tonight. We had so much fun the last time,” he joked April 30.
“They say Donald lacks the foreign policy experience to be president,” he continued. “But, in fairness, he has spent years meeting with leaders from around the world: Miss Sweden, Miss Argentina, Miss Azerbaijan.”
As the general election draws nearer, Obama is showing no signs of treating Trump as a serious candidate worthy of true political discourse.
