Spox Says Trump, Obama ‘Continue To Talk’ As Trump Jabs Him On Twitter

President Barack Obama meets with President-elect Donald Trump in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, Thursday, Nov. 10, 2016. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)
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Incoming White House press secretary Sean Spicer said on Wednesday that President Barack Obama and President-elect Donald Trump “continue to talk,” even as Trump suggested that Obama was leaving “roadblocks” for his transition effort.

“They continue to talk,” Spicer said on a conference call with reporters. “I don’t know when the last time they did, but as the inauguration gets closer, both the current President and his team have been very helpful and generous with their time as far as the actual mechanics of the transition have gone, and I expect them to continue to speak fairly regularly.”

During a podcast interview with former adviser David Axelrod that went live on Monday, Obama said that he would have won the 2016 presidential race using the promise of “one America that is tolerant and diverse and open.”

Speaking at Pearl Harbor alongside Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Tuesday, Obama made a similar call for unity that could be read as a dig against Trump’s “America first” campaign rhetoric.

“Even when hatred burns hottest, even when the tug of tribalism is at its most primal, we must resist the urge to turn inward,” Obama said at the Pearl Harbor memorial site. “We must resist the urge to demonize those who are different.”

In an apparent response that began on Twitter Monday afternoon and continued through early Wednesday morning, Trump slammed Obama for his “inflammatory” statements:

When asked about his tweets and the transition process on Wednesday afternoon, Trump said he thinks the transition is going “very, very smoothly.”

“Very good,” he said, according to a transition pool report. “You don’t think so?”

This post has been updated.

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