Obama’s subdued remarks came after he spent months attacking Trump from the campaign trail and the White House, bluntly declaring the former reality show star “unfit” to hold the office, mocking his “yapping” about terrorism, and confidently predicting that the voters would reject someone he routinely described as unstable and intolerant.
“Donald Trump is temperamentally unfit to be commander in chief,” Obama thundered at a rally in Philadelphia on the eve of the election. “Over the weekend, his campaign took away his Twitter account because he’s erratic. If his closest advisers don’t trust him to tweet, why would any of us trust him with the nuclear codes?”
And, the president continued, Trump “has shown utter contempt for the values that make this nation great. Anyone who sees women as objects, minorities and immigrants as inferior, other faiths as presumptively un-American cannot lead this diverse, dynamic, big-hearted country that we love.”
Instead, American voters repudiated Obama’s scolding message and handed the self-described billionaire the most spectacular upset victory in modern political history. And in doing so, they ensured that the country’s first black president will, come Jan. 20, hand power to the man most closely associated with the racist-tinged “birther” conspiracy that he was not born in the United States.
Trump’s victory also clearly imperils the legacy Obama built over his two consequential terms. The Republican will get to nominate at least one, and potentially three, Supreme Court justices, thus potentially shaping the court for decades to come. Republicans have seized on the election results to promise a new push to repeal Obamacare, the current president’s signature domestic achievement. The Democrat’s executive actions on issues like immigration or climate change seem on course for reversal. The fate of his nuclear deal with Iran and his outreach to Cuba, which are policies the Obama administration White House has tried to make “irreversible,” are now in doubt.
“I think of this job as being a relay runner,” Obama said. “You take the baton, you run your best race and hopefully by the time you hand it off, you’re a little further ahead, you’ve made a little progress. And I can say that we’ve done that and I want to make sure that handoff is well executed because ultimately we’re all on the same team.”
Article Appeared @https://www.yahoo.com/news/obama-urges-unity-after-trump-victory-175537102.html