During his speech on criminal justice reform at the NAACP convention on Tuesday, Obama praised the Republicans and conservatives who have been fighting for prison reform–including Rand Paul and the Koch Brothers.
“As Republican Senator and presidential candidate Rand Paul has said,” Obama began, prompting laughter from the audience, “no, and to his credit, he’s been consistent on this issue — imprisoning large numbers of nonviolent drug offenders for long periods of time, ‘costs the taxpayers money, without making them any safer.'”
Later in the speech, he mentioned other conservative figures working on justice reform, including Newt Gingrich and the Koch brothers:
The Kochs–not generally the subject of Obama’s affection–have long supported prison reform efforts. At the start of this year, Charles Koch singled out the issue as a special priority for 2015.
The NAACP speech was part of a justice reform-focused week for the president. On Monday, he commuted the prison sentences of 46 drug offenders–nearly doubling his total number of commutations since he took office–and on Thursday, he’ll become the first sitting president to ever tour a federal prison.
