Obama: GOPers Undermining Their Own Ability To Govern By Trashing Me

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In an interview with NBC’s “Today” that aired Wednesday morning, President Obama said that Republicans have hurt their ability to govern by constantly criticizing Obama and Democrats.

Obama made the comments when asked about Donald Trump’s personal attacks against him.

“What Mr. Trump has done is to make more explicit and branded what really has been going on for a long time. This isn’t new stuff,” Obama said. “We don’t take it personally.”

“We do think that it makes it difficult to run the country, not just for me, but for Republican leaders. If you think about the fact that Republicans right now control both the House and the Senate and yet they can’t even pass their own agenda,” he continued. “Part of the reason is that if you are telling your base, if you’re telling your voters that the other side is not just wrong, but bad and unpatriotic and different and are undermining America, well then, what they’re going to say to you is, ‘You can’t work with them. You can’t compromise.'”

He noted that while he disagreed with his former opponents Mitt Romney and Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), “there wasn’t a sense that we couldn’t find common ground on certain things.”

Watch part of the interview via NBC News:

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Notable Replies

  1. Because it is much easier for the GOP to be the Party of NO, than acting like mature adults who realize compromise is the key.

  2. Thank you, Mr. President.

    How I wish he could run for another term.

  3. I seem to remember that people wanted Bill to run for a third term.

    Oh…and I wish Dems would understand that this isn’t about governing, at least for the GOP. This is about “Let Go Of My Country Or I’ll Shoot It Dead”.

  4. TPM:

    In an interview with NBC’s “Today” that aired Wednesday morning, President Obama said that Republicans have hurt their ability to govern by constantly criticizing Obama and Democrats.

    That assumes Republicans want to govern - which seems unlikely given the lack of inclination they’ve shown for the job, and their constant mantra that “Government is the problem.”

  5. The lunatics are now running the asylum. Between the corporatists, the climate-change deniers and the evangelicals, they have nothing. Nothing but fear and lies. I really do hope that most voters will have the common sense to vote for the candidate and the party that really does have our best interests in mind. Above and beyond any other issues, Trump is a dangerous, petty little man who has no business being in charge of anything. The GOP has nothing to offer me.

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