In an interview with Fox News, Donald Trump asserted multiple times that former President Barack Obama is responsible for leaks from the White House and anti-Republican protests that have been forming at local town halls across the country recently, CNN reports.
After an interviewer asked whether Trump believed Obama was somehow orchestrating the leaks and whether this went against “‘the so-called unsaid presidents’ code,’” Trump responded that he did, in fact, believe Obama was to blame. He also said “‘that’s politics.’”
Trump provided, predictably, no evidence to back up these accusations. The interview doesn’t cover what exactly these leaks are, or how they are actually taking place. Perhaps by leftover staffers? Hidden cameras? Child spies? I don’t know. No one knows. Alternative facts! I can’t keep up.
“I think that President Obama is behind it because his people are certainly behind it. And some of the leaks possibly come from that group, which are really serious because they are very bad in terms of national security,” Trump added. Really serious. Very bad. Could he be any more vague? He doesn’t know either!
As for the protests that have been taking places at town halls hosted by Republican officials, Trump thinks these are deliberate ploys by the former president as well. This is basically an utter misinterpretation of the actual facts on Trump and his administration’s behalf.
A number of progressive and left-leaning political groups have been helping to organize protests at the town halls, some of which have leadership that was involved in the Obama administration. “Organizing For Action, the SEIU, MoveOn.org and the Center for American Progress” are part of these efforts, according to CNN.
Trump’s accusations are likely in reference to the involvement of Organizing for Action, which has specific ties to the Obama administration. According to NBC News, the group is chaired by former Obama campaign manager Jim Messina and advocates for the maintaining of policies from Obama’s presidency.
I might be missing something here, but isn’t this group just doing what it is supposed to do? It’s not as if these protesters are being paid, they’re just getting help organizing and coordinating from a group with experience and the resources to aid them.
It makes sense that a Democratic-leaning group of individuals would be supporting Democratic policies, and to suggest that Barack Obama et al. should give up on their political positions just because they no longer have the power of office is discrediting of the American political system and political debate as a whole.
I don’t see how this is problematic. Things might be more clear to me if Donald Trump himself had a legitimate stance on these issues beyond just using unnecessary adverbs.