Former US President Barack Obama has said that he is “deeply concerned” by the policies that the country’s current leader, Donald Trump, has pursued since the start of his second term in office.
During his speech at Hamilton College in New York State on Thursday, Obama criticized the Trump administration’s protectionist economic policies, attempts to tackle federal spending, clampdown on immigration, and treatment of the media.
He denounced the sweeping tariffs imposed by Trump earlier this week on the majority of US trading partners, saying: “I do not think what we just witnessed… is going to be good for America.”
However, the 63-year-old Democrat stressed that the tariffs are just one policy, and that he is “more deeply concerned with a federal government that threatens universities if they don’t give up students who are exercising their right to free speech,” referring to actions taken against pro-Palestinian demonstrators.
The Trump administration’s pressure on law firms and its decision to bar AP journalists from accessing the Oval Office reflect “a kind of behavior [that] is contrary to the basic compact we have as Americans,” the former president said.
“Imagine if I had pulled Fox News’ credentials from the White House press corps. It is unimaginable that the same parties that are silent now would have tolerated behavior like that from me or a whole bunch of my predecessors,” he argued.
The former president concluded his message by saying that “history zigs and zags and there are times of conflict and there are times of stupidity and there are times of danger.”
Trump slammed Obama at the height of the race for the White House last year, calling the former president “a jerk” and saying that he “divides this country” by campaigning for then-Democratic contender Kamala Harris.
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