President Obama scoffed at the evolving conventional wisdom among Republicans and some pundits that he’s responsible for the rise of Donald Trump.
“I have been blamed by Republicans for a lot of things,” Obama said from the Rose Garden during a press conference with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Thursday. “But being blamed for their primaries, and who they’re selecting for their party, is novel.”
The Wall Street Journal, among others, recently laid Trump’s primary success at Obama’s feet.
Obama said he does “all kinds of soul-searching to see if there are things we can do better to unify the country.” But when asked if he’s to blame for the state of political discourse, he said it’s the fault of “Republican elites” and conservative media that have been “feeding the Republican base for the past seven years the notion that everything I do is to be opposed, cooperation or compromise is somehow a betrayal.”
Obama said he “certainly” has not contributed to the “tone” of such politics: “I don’t remember saying, “Hey, why don’t you ask me about [my]” birth certificate.
“What you’re seeing within the Republican Party is … all those efforts, over a course of time creating an environment where someone like a Donald Trump can thrive,” Obama said.
However provocative Trump’s rhetoric is, his position stances are no different than those of GOP Sens. Ted Cruz, Texas, and Marco Rubio, Florida, Obama said.
“For that matter, they’re not that different from Mr. Rubio’s positions on immigration, despite the fact that both Mr. Cruz and Mr. Rubio, their own families, are the products of immigration and the openness of our society,” Obama said about the Republican front-runners’ harsh immigration stances.
“So, I am more than happy to own the responsibility as president, as the only officeholder who is elected by all the American people, to continue to make efforts to bridge divides and help us find common ground,” he added. “But what I’m not going to do is to validate some notion that the Republican crack-up that’s been taking place is a consequence of actions that I’ve taken.”
GOP leaders who are worried need “to reflect on what it is about the politics they’ve engaged in that allows the circus we’ve been seeing to transpire and to do some introspection because, ultimately, I want an effective Republican Party…in part to challenge some of the blind spots and dogmas in the Democratic Party.
“I think that’s useful,” he said.
