Last updated on July 17th, 2023 at 06:54 pm
President Obama exposed the lie which is the foundation of all Republican lies while speaking to Democrats in California.
While speaking at a fundraising dinner in San Francisco, President Obama said:
Now, that’s the Senate. Things are even more messed up in the House. And I said when I was in L.A. yesterday, and initially people were surprised — I said that I actually think that Donald Trump and Ted Cruz have done us a favor. People said, well, how so? This notion that Donald Trump or Ted Cruz are outliers and that now suddenly the Republican establishment wants to — they’re embarrassed by them. Why? They’re saying the same things that these members of the Freedom Caucus in the House have been saying for years. In fact, that’s where Trump got it. He said he’d been listening apparently to their positions on immigration, and their views with respect to national security, and their views on slashing taxes for the wealthiest among us, and slashing Medicaid and changing Medicare, and he’d been paying attention, and he said, you know what, I can deliver this message with more flair — (laughter) — with more panache.
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And the reason I actually think that they’ve done us a favor is because it has stripped away any veneer of responsible governance from what had been the central tenets of an awful lot of Republicans in both the House and the Senate during the course of my presidency and before that.
Now, that is different from saying that all Republicans agree with him. I think there is a substantial number of Republicans out there who are embarrassed by it. It’s just that they hadn’t been hearing what was being said on talk radio and Fox News, and blogs and so forth. And so now there’s a little bit of recoil. Is that what we’re standing for? Blocking Muslims from coming into our country? Building walls? Surveilling neighborhoods?
The media seized on Obama’s statement that Trump and Cruz are doing Democrats a favor, but the President’s deeper message is that Republicans have been faking their ability and interest in responsible governing for years and that the Republican presidential candidates are shining a bright light on the fact that the Republican Party is built on fraud.
Obama was correct. Donald Trump didn’t materialize out of thin air. Trump got his positions and applause lines from listening to what Republican members of Congress have been saying for years. As Republicans in Congress increasingly pandered to conservative media, their rhetoric became more extreme, while their interest in governing has completely evaporated.
The great lie that the current Republican Party is built on is that Republicans have any interest in responsible governing. Republicans have zero interest in working with Democrats to get things done. Republicans in the House and Senate claim that they want to govern, but their statements are not true. Actions speak louder than words, and through their actions, Congressional Republicans have shown the American people that they don’t care about doing their jobs.
As his time in office is coming to an end, President Obama is gaining the freedom to be blunt with his statements. President Obama attacked the singular lie that the fraudulent Republican facade of interest in governing was built on.
Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
