US President Barack Obama on Friday said that the White House race is not a “reality show” and called for presumptive Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s record to be held to close scrutiny as the billionaire seeks to rally divided Republicans behind him.
With Trump seizing the mantle of presumptive Republican nominee this week after his rivals exited the race, debate has turned to whether he would be able to rally the party faithful behind him between now and November.
Asked about Trump’s candidacy and the resulting chaos on the Republican side, Obama offered some of his most pointed comments yet about the celebrity real-estate mogul and longtime star of the TV show The Apprentice, whose political rise has stunned the world.
Photo: AFP
“We are in serious times and this is a really serious job,” Obama told reporters at the White House. “This is not entertainment. This is not a reality show.”
“Every candidate, every nominee needs to be subject to exacting standards and genuine scrutiny,” he said.
Trump has raised howls of protest within his own party with his harsh, free-wheeling speech and proposals ranging from banning Muslims from entering the US to building a wall on the southern border to keep out Mexican migrants to slashing US funding for NATO so allies pay more.
“He has a long record that needs to be examined, and I think it’s important for us to take seriously the statements he’s made in the past,” Obama said.
US Secretary of State John Kerry piled on, telling a diverse and international graduating class at Northeastern University that they were “Donald Trump’s worst nightmare.”
“We will never come out on top if we accept advice from soundbite salesmen and carnival barkers who pretend the most powerful country on Earth can remain great by looking inward and hiding behind walls,” he said.
The words of warning came a day after the nation’s top elected Republican official, House Speaker Paul Ryan, refused to support the presumptive nominee, saying Trump has “some work to do” to win over skeptics within his camp.
Possibly offering an olive branch, Ryan invited Trump to meet with him and fellow party leaders in the House on Thursday.
Trump said he planned to tell Ryan, third in line to the presidency: “Look, this is what the people want.”
“I really think I earned the support from the people,” he told ABC’s This Week in excerpts released ahead of Sunday’s broadcast.
Trump said earlier he was taken aback by Ryan’s rebuke.
Ryan’s warning to Trump threw the Republican Party deeper into soul-searching over how to mount a viable campaign against Democratic front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton in November.
Several party elders — including the past two Republican presidents, George W. Bush and George H.W. Bush — have refused outright to endorse Trump.
US Senator Lindsey Graham became the latest establishment Republican to join the growing “anything but Trump” chorus.
He joined former Florida governor and Republican presidential hopeful Jeb Bush in saying he would support neither Trump nor Clinton.
The pair — both dropped out of the race against Trump — said that they would focus on the goal of helping Republicans maintain their majorities in the US House of Representatives and Senate.
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