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Barack Obama weighed into the 2016 Republican race for president and slammed Donald Trump and [crscore]Marco Rubio[/crscore] during a speech Tuesday at the US-ASEAN Leaders Summit from Rancho Mirage, California.
Obama argued that Trump would not be elected president, and he hit Rubio for “running away” from supporting the Gang of Eight immigration bill.
“I think foreign observers are troubled by some of the rhetoric that’s been taking place in these Republican primaries and Republican debates,” Obama said. “I don’t think it’s restricted, by the way, to Mr. Trump. I mean, I find it interesting that everyone’s focused on Trump, primarily just because he says in more interesting ways what the other candidates are saying as well.”
“And so [Trump] may up the ante in anti-Muslim sentiment, but if you look at what the other Republican candidates have said, that’s pretty troubling, too,” Obama said. (RELATED: Trump Calls For Moratorium On Muslims Entering United States)
Obama argued that Trump “may express strong anti-immigration sentiment, but you’ve heard that from the other candidates as well. You’ve got a candidate who sponsored a bill that I supported to finally solve the immigration problem and he’s running away from it as fast as he can.” (RELATED: Carson: Only Sharia-Compliant Muslims Who Are ‘Schizophrenic’ Can Integrate Into America [AUDIO])
Later, the president said, “I’ll leave it to [the reporter who asked the question] to speculate on how this whole race is going to go. I continue to believe that Mr. Trump will not be president. And the reason is because I have a lot of faith in the American people. And I think they recognize that being president is a serious job. It’s not hosting a talk show or a reality show. It’s not promotion. It’s not marketing. It’s hard. And a lot of people count on us getting it right. And it’s not a matter of pandering and doing whatever will get you in the news on a given day. And sometimes it requires you making hard decisions, even when people don’t like it. And doing things that are unpopular. And standing up for people who are vulnerable, but don’t have some powerful political constituency.”
According to Obama, being president “requires being able to work with leaders around the world in a way that reflects the importance of the office. And it gives people confidence that you know the facts. And you know their names. And you know where they are on a map. And you know something about their history. And you’re not just going to play for the crowd back home, because they have their own crowds back home. And you’re trying to solve problems.”
“And so yeah, during primaries people vent and they express themselves and if it seems like entertainment, and oftentimes it’s reported, just like entertainment but as you get closer, reality has a way of intruding,” Obama said. “And these are the folks who I have faith in because they’re ultimately going to say, whoever’s standing where I’m standing right now has the nuclear codes with them and can order 21-year-olds into a firefight and have to make sure that the banking system doesn’t collapse and is often responsible for not just the United States of America, but 20 other countries that are having big problems or are falling apart and will be looking for us to do something and the American people are pretty sensible. And I think they will make a sensible choice in the end.”