Washington: US President Barack Obama has mocked Donald Trump, saying the “colourful” presumptive Republican presidential nominee seems to be “doing a good job” mentioning his own name and “advertising” himself.
Responding to a question on why he is not taking Trump’s name while criticising his policies, Obama said: “You know, he (Trump) seems to do a good job mentioning his own name.” “So, I figure I will let him do his advertising for him,” he said yesterday amid laughter during a speech in Indiana.
“I think Trump is a more colourful character than some of the other Republican elected officials. But a lot of the story that he’s telling is entirely consistent with what folks have been saying about me or the general story they have been telling about the economy for the last seven-and-a-half, the last 10, the last 20, the last 30 years,” Obama said during the Town Hall organised by PBS News.
“A lot of times, it’s easy for somebody to come up and say, you know what, if we deport all the immigrants and build a wall, or if we cut off trade with China, or if we do X or Y or Z, that there’s some simple answer and, suddenly, everything’s going to feel secure,” he said in response to a question.
Obama questioned the claims being made by Trump on his promise of bringing jobs back to the US. “Well how exactly are you going to do that? What exactly are you going to do? There’s no answer to it,” he said.
“He just says, Well, I’m going to negotiate a better deal. Well, what, how exactly are you going to negotiate that? What magic wand do you have? And usually the answer is, he doesn’t have an answer,” Obama said. The US President lashed out at some of the Trump policies. He described Trump’s pledge to roll back Wall Street regulations as “crazy”.
“My bigger point is to bust this myth of crazy liberal government spending. Government spending is not what is squeezing the middle class,” Obama said, adding that it is also a myth that other countries are killing US on trade. “The truth is, trade has helped our country a lot more than it’s hurt us. Exports helped lead us out of the recession.
Companies that export pay workers higher wages than folks who don’t export,” he said. “And anybody who says that somehow shutting ourselves off from trade is going to bring jobs back, they’re just not telling the truth,” he added. Obama also slammed the anti-immigration rhetoric of Trump. “It’s true that new immigrants sometimes compete for service and construction jobs.
But they also start about 30 per cent of all new businesses in America,” he said. “Everybody thinks that immigrants come here and then they’re getting all this stuff from the government.
Immigrants pay a lot more in taxes than they receive in services. The primary story that Republicans have been telling about the economy is not supported by the facts,” he added.
PTI