President Obama issued a farewell warning to President-elect Donald Trump, saying he would jump off the political sidelines if Trump goes against certain 'core values.'At his last scheduled news conference before leaving office on Friday, Obama said if there was 'systemic discrimination,' efforts to 'silence dissent' or to 'roll back voting rights,' he would be 'speaking out.'
It was among his most activist descriptions of his next act, and indicates Obama may be rethinking his post-presidency role and heeding the urgings of some activists to play a stronger function in the leaderless Democratic Party as it navigates the Trump administration.
That group of issues, Obama explained, were 'core values that may be at stake' and would prompt him to get off the sidelines.
In his final news conference, President Obama vowed to step in if certain 'core values' were threatened
'If I saw systematic discrimination [is] being ratified in some fashion. I put in that category explicit or functional obstacles to people being able to vote, to exercise their franchise,' Obama said.
He continued: 'I put in that category institutional efforts to silence dissent or the press.'
He saved some of his most impassioned remarks for DREAMers. 'And for me, at least, I would put in that category efforts to round up kids who have grown up here and for all practical purposes are American kids, and send them someplace else, when they love this country, they are our kids' friends and their classmates and are now entering into community colleges or in some cases serving in our military …'
'The notion that we would just arbitrarily, or because of politics, punish those kids, when they didn't do anything wrong themselves, I think would be something that would merit me speaking out. It doesn't mean that I would get on the ballot anywhere.'
His comment about DREAMers references immigrants brought here illegally as children. Obama issued executive actions to protect them from deportation, but their fate is now in limbo.
Obama issued the warning during his last announced press conference of his presidency
DON'T GET TOO COMFORTABLE: Members of the incoming Trump administration have talked about banishing reporters from the White House, although incoming press secretary Sean Spicer appeared to back off the idea this week
President Barack Obama holds the last news conference of his presidency in the Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House
Obama referenced a series of lengthy conversations with President-elect Donald Trump. He has urged Trump to protect 'DREAMers'
President Barack Obama waves as he departs the briefing room at the conclusion of his final press conference at the White House. He thanked reporters 'for your extraordinary service to our democracy'
Trump during the campaign threatened to undo the actions, although in recent remarks he has said his policy will have 'heart' and they will be well treated. Trump also during the campaign spoke about making it easier to sue media outlets for libel, said he would bring back water boarding, and proposed a temporary ban on Muslims entering the United States.
He told Fox News in an interview that aired Wednesday: 'It's a plan that's going to be very firm, but it's going to be a lot of heart. And we're going to be looking into that situation.'
Trump's proposed Muslim ban is one rights issue that Obama failed to mention explicitly.
Obama also spoke about advancements for gay rights, using a football analogy to describe his administration's actions, which he described as irreversible.
President Obama began his final press conference with a salute to the press gathered in the White House Briefing Room – but his comments might just as well have been directed at his successor.
Obama said reporters are supposed to be ‘skeptics’ who cast a ‘critical eye,’ and said their presence in the White House made his team ‘work harder’ and made the place ‘better.’
The remarks sent a signal to Trump, who has banned reporters from his rallies and carried on a Twitter war with CNN and NBC. His team has been considering kicking the press out of the White House and holding daily briefings in another facility.
Obama's remarks on the press are contained below.
‘I have enjoyed working with all of you. That does not, of course, mean that I’ve enjoyed every story that you have filed, but that’s the point of this relationship.
'You’re not supposed to be fans, you’re supposed to be skeptics, you’re supposed to ask me tough questions. You’re not supposed to be complimentary, but you’re supposed to cast a critical eye on folks who hold enormous power and make sure that we are accountable to the people who sent us here, and you have done that.
'And you have done it for the most part in ways that I could appreciate for fairness, even if I didn’t always agree with your conclusions. And having you in this building has made this place work better.
'It keeps us honest, it makes us work harder. You have made us think about how we are doing what we do and whether or not we’re able to deliver on what’s been requested by our constituents.
'And for example, every time you’ve asked why haven’t you cured Ebola yet or why is there still that hole in the Gulf, it has given me the ability to go back and say, “Will you get this solved before the next press conference?"
'I spent a lot of time on my – in my farewell address talking about the state of our democracy. It goes without saying that essential to that is a free press. That is part of how this place, this country, this grand experiment of self-government has to work. It doesn't work if we don't have a well-informed citizenry, and you are the conduit through which they receive the information about what's taking place in the halls of power.
'So America needs you and our democracy needs you. We need you to establish a baseline of facts and evidence that we can use as a starting point for the kind of reasoned and informed debates that ultimately lead to progress. And so my hope is that you will continue with the same tenacity that you showed us, to do the hard work of getting to the bottom of stories and getting them right and to push those of us in power to be the best version of ourselves and to push this country to be the best version of itself.
'I have no doubt that you will do so. I'm looking forward to being an active consumer of your work, rather than always the subject of it. I want to thank you all for your extraordinary service to our democracy.'
'I'm proud that in certain places we maybe provided a good block downfield to help the movement advance. I don't think it is something that will be reversible, because American society has changed. The attitudes of young people in particular have changed,' the president said.
'That doesn't mean there aren't going to be some fights that are important – legal issues, issues surrounding transgender persons. There's still going to be some battles that need to take place,' he continued.
'But if you talk to young people, Malia and Sasha's generation, even if they're Republicans, even if they're conservative, many of them would tell you, "I don't understand how you would discriminate against somebody because of sexual orientation." That's just sort of burned into them in pretty powerful ways.'
Trump has also threatened to roll back or reverse multiple other elements of Obama's agenda that the president didn't mention, from climate change to policing tactics.
Trump spoke repeatedly about what he called election fraud, which could set up an effort to have his Justice Department relax enforcement on states who raise the bar for voting.
Obama made his comment about jumping into politics after saying his immediate plan is to quietly reflect and write inside his new home in DC's tony Kalorama neighborhood.
'I want to do some writing. I want to be quiet a little bit and not hear myself talk so darn much,' he said.
He returned to the issue of voting rights later in his remarks, when asked a question about race.
'I'm talking about voting rights. The reason that we are the only country among advanced democracies that makes it harder to vote, it traces directly back to Jim Crow and the legacy of slavery,' he said.
In a goodbye present to the press, Obama said: 'I want to thank you all for your extraordinary service to our democracy.'
'Having you in this building has made this place work better, it keeps us honest … it makes us work harder,' he said.'
The remarks defending the role and utility of reporters come as Trump has continued to wage political war against perceived rivals, bashing CNN and NBC as 'Fake News.' His incoming press team threatened to kick reporters out of the White House and hold briefings outside the traditional briefing room, although incoming Press Secretary Sean Spicer appeared to back off on Wednesday.
Obama, whose father was from Kenya and mother from Kansas and who is the first black president, but whose goal of being succeeded by Hillary Clinton got squelched, also reflected on what his successors might look like.
'If in fact we continue to keep opportunity open to everybody, then, yeah, we're going to have a woman president, we're going to have a Latino president, we're going to have a Jewish president, a Hindu president,' Obama said. 'You know, who knows who we're going to have?'
'I suspect we'll have a whole bunch of mixed-up presidents at some point, that nobody really knows what to call them. And that's fine.'
EASY STREET: 'I want to do some writing. I want to be quiet a little bit and not hear myself talk so darn much,' he said.
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