President Obama Pays Back Birthers By Becoming The Trump Killer In Chief

Last updated on July 17th, 2023 at 06:40 pm

President Obama is payback the nation’s biggest birther turned Republican frontrunner by becoming the Trump killer in chief.

Video:

Transcript via NPR:

INSKEEP: Mr. President, we are nearing the end of a year where the question of national identity, who we are, has been a part of one large event after another. I made a list here, in fact. Gay marriage, the black lives matter movement, immigration, the question of whether to admit Syrian refugees into the country, the question of whether to admit Muslims into the country. All of them in some sense touch on that question of who we are.

What is the reason, the cause, what has caused that issue of who we are to come forward again and again and again at this moment in history?

OBAMA: Steve, it never went away. That’s at the center of the American experience. You pick any year or any decade in American history and this question has been wrestled with. Sometimes it pops up a little more prominently, sometimes it gets tamped down a little bit, but this has been true since the founding and the central question of slavery, and who is a citizen and who is not.

It was a debate that took place when, you know, there were signs on the doors saying, no Irish need apply. It was a debate that happened during Japanese internment in World War II. It was obviously a debate in the South for most of our history and during the civil rights movement. And it’s been a debate that we’ve been having around issues of the LGBT community for at least most of my adult life.

So I don’t think there’s anything new about it. I do think that the country is inexorably changing, I believe in all kinds of positive ways. I think we are — when I talk to my daughters and their friends, I think they are more tolerant, more welcoming of people who are different than them, more sophisticated about different cultures and what’s happening around the world.

But I do think that when you combine that demographic change with all the economic stresses that people have been going through because of the financial crisis, because of technology, because of globalization, the fact that wages and incomes have been flatlining for some time, and that particularly blue-collar men have had a lot of trouble in this new economy, where they are no longer getting the same bargain that they got when they were going to a factory and able to support their families on a single paycheck, you combine those things and it means that there is going to be potential anger, frustration, fear. Some of it justified but just misdirected. I think somebody like Mr. Trump is taking advantage of that. That’s what he’s exploiting during the course of his campaign.

But in other cases, an issue like black lives Matter in the question of whether, you know, the criminal justice system applies equally to everybody, that’s been an issue in the African-American community, and to some degree in the Latino community, for decades. There’s no black family that hasn’t had a conversation around the kitchen table about driving while black and being profiled or being stopped.

Obama has been taking apart Trump since the billionaire went full on birther in 2011 , but in recent months, Obama has become the Trump killer in chief by using the bully pulpit to take down Trump.

The President mocked Trump at an international state dinner in July, and has been handing Trump his head for weeks and the Republican frontrunner has ratcheted up his racist rhetoric.

One can’t help but sense that President Obama is getting a tiny bit of payback on Trump for his racist birtherism, but mostly Obama sees the ugly threat that Trump is presenting and is fighting back.

Republicans can’t or won’t stop Trump, so President Obama has become the nation’s top Trump killer.

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Jason Easley

Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.

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Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association

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