A blogger named Sherry wrote on her blog about an incident with her two-year-old son Gabe (right), who has Down syndrome. Sherry wrote on her blog “Hand Me Downs” that she was tempted to punch the employee but she delivered a more appropriate response:
Sometimes I forget that our son has Down syndrome. It’s easy to be distracted by his two year old tantrums, his mischievous smile and go getter attitude. Gabe is kind hearted but stubborn.
Sometimes I forget, and that makes it even harder when someone reminds me in a not so kind way….
Like the cashier that gave me sad eyes and spit poison in a whisper,
“I bet you wish you had known before he came out. You know they have a test for that now…”
(Read more from “Cashier Tells Mom of Toddler With Down Syndrome: ‘Bet You Wish You Knew Before He Came Out'” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/pregnant-woman.jpg10171536Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2016-11-14 23:52:532016-11-14 23:52:53Cashier Tells Mom of Toddler With Down Syndrome: ‘Bet You Wish You Knew Before He Came Out’
Hillary Clinton on Saturday cast blame for her surprise election loss on the announcement by the F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, days before the election that he had revived the inquiry into her use of a private email server.
In her most extensive remarks since she conceded the race to Donald J. Trump early Wednesday, Mrs. Clinton told donors on a 30-minute conference call that Mr. Comey’s decision to send a letter to Congress about the inquiry 11 days before Election Day had thrust the controversy back into the news and had prevented her from ending the campaign with an optimistic closing argument.
“There are lots of reasons why an election like this is not successful,” Mrs. Clinton said, according to a donor who relayed the remarks. But, she added, “our analysis is that Comey’s letter raising doubts that were groundless, baseless, proven to be, stopped our momentum.”
Mrs. Clinton said a second letter from Mr. Comey, clearing her once again, which came two days before Election Day, had been even more damaging. In that letter, Mr. Comey said an examination of a new trove of emails, which had been found on the computer of Anthony D. Weiner, the estranged husband of one of her top aides, had not caused him to change his earlier conclusion that Mrs. Clinton should face no charges over her handling of classified information.
Her campaign said the seemingly positive outcome had only hurt it with voters who did not trust Mrs. Clinton and were receptive to Mr. Trump’s claims of a “rigged system.” In particular, white suburban women who had been on the fence were reminded of the email imbroglio and broke decidedly in Mr. Trump’s favor, aides said.
…
Mrs. Clinton’s campaign was so confident in her victory that her aides popped open Champagne on the campaign plane early Tuesday. But that conviction, aides would later learn, was based largely on erroneous data showing that young, black and Latino voters and suburban women who had been turned off by Mr. Trump’s comments but viewed Mrs. Clinton unfavorably would turn out for her in higher numbers than they ultimately did. (For more from the author of “Hillary Clinton Blames F.B.I. Director for Election Loss” please click HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/3225553226_69ed70d3e9_o.jpg17732500Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2016-11-14 23:31:012016-11-20 02:26:26What Happened on Hillary’s Plane Right Before She Lost Election Revealed, It Speaks Volumes…
Now that the Soros-funded radicals are using safety pins to signify their disrespect for the Constitution, our summer intern @BiffSpackle offers these helpful fashion tips:
(For more from the author of “A LEFTIST’S GUIDE TO ANTI-TRUMP PROTESTS: Chapter 12 — How to Wear Your Protest Safety Pin” please click HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/4873619764_2b66b744c2_b.jpg6831024Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2016-11-14 22:41:062016-11-14 22:41:06A LEFTIST’S GUIDE TO ANTI-TRUMP PROTESTS: Chapter 12 — How to Wear Your Protest Safety Pin
President-elect Donald Trump told “60 Minutes” reporter Lesley Stahl that the prominence of lobbyists in his presidential transition was due to the need for qualified people who know the system, not a violation of his campaign vow to “drain the swamp” in Washington.
Stahl continued to press Trump on the point, pointing out that his transition team is “filled, with lobbyists,” including lobbyists from Verizon and the oil, gas, and food industries. Trump responded, “Everybody’s a lobbyist down there. … I’m saying that they know the system right now, but we’re going to phase that out. You have to phase it out.”
One of Trump’s talking points throughout his presidential campaign was a promise to “drain the swamp” in D.C. of insiders and lobbyists. Spokesperson Kellyanne Conway said on Sunday that Trump would retain quality people with D.C. experience; later in the day, Trump named Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus as his Chief of Staff. Trump has promised lobbyist reforms would take place within his first 100 days as president.
Trump, who has admitted to earning the favor of politicians by sending them money during his time as a businessman, told “60 Minutes” that
Everything, everything down there — there are no people — there are all people that work — that’s the problem with the system, the system. Right now, we’re going to clean it up. We’re having restrictions on foreign money coming in, we’re going to put on term limits, which a lot of people aren’t happy about, but we’re putting on term limits. We’re doing a lot of things to clean up the system. But everybody that works for government, they then leave government and they become a lobbyist, essentially. I mean, the whole place is one big lobbyist.
Trump’s words somewhat echo those of another President-elect who vowed to change Washington: then-Senator Barack Obama (D-IL). The president declared in his 2010 State of the Union address that “we have excluded lobbyists from policymaking jobs,” while his aide David Axelrod said the next year that the administration”has ended the revolving door between industry and government.”
Last year, however, Politico noted that “seven years into Obama’s presidency, the revolving door shuttling officials out of his administration is spinning at a rapid clip.” In 2013, a scholarly study estimated that Obama had used various loopholes and technicalities to hire more than 100 former lobbyists at the White House. (For more from the author of “Trump Says He’ll ‘Phase out’ Political System That Empowers Lobbyists” please click HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/23173198803_93e90ebc2a_b.jpg6831024Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2016-11-14 22:27:462016-11-14 22:27:46Trump Says He’ll ‘Phase out’ Political System That Empowers Lobbyists
Ironically, some protesters carry signs that say “Love trumps hate” and “Love always wins” — while many of their fellow protesters riot, smash windows, attack bystanders, block traffic and vandalize cars and property.
Chanting “Not my president!,” the protesters reject the election of Donald Trump because they disagree with him, even though he was legally elected. “You got climate change, you got the Iran deal. You got gay rights, you got mass deportations. Just everything, straight up and down the line, the guy is wrong on every issue,” said one protester outside the Trump Tower in New York City. However, what many protesters really want is to force local changes like rent control — if they want anything at all besides the pleasures of violent protest.
It’s possible that others manipulate the rioters for their own purposes. Many of the demonstrators are funded by wealthy activists like left-wing billionaire George Soros, recruited through ads on Craigslist. Since the election, new ads have been posted that say things like, “Be Civil, but Don’t Back Down.” Todd Walther, spokesman for the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Fraternal Order of Police, told CNN that 70 percent of those arrested in Charlotte had out-of-state IDs. Blocks of buses were caught on video in Chicago busing in protesters from Wisconsin.
Portland and Los Angeles
The worst violence has taken place in Portland, Oregon. On Thursday, over 4,000 demonstrators showed up to riot, setting a dumpster on fire and vandalizing 19 cars at a dealership in Northeast Portland. Anarchists joined the protest and vandalized buildings, kicked cars, attacked drivers, and knocked out power. One driver reported her windshield smashed. Many were armed with bats and threw projectiles at police officers.
By 8:30 p.m., police labeled it a riot. The Oregon State Department of Transportation was forced to shut down parts of Interstates 5 and 84 for awhile. The protesters refused to disband when asked by police, and over 26 people were arrested. The groups included Don’t Shoot Portland and Black Lives Matter, which combined in Portland to become a new group called “Portland’s Resistance.”
Portland’s Resistance issued a list of demands after the rioting, which include, “An acknowledgement of Portland’s racist past and concrete steps to rectify that sad truth,” “An acknowledgement that we are living on stolen land and efforts to rectify that fact,” and “Rent control and an end to no cause evictions.”
In Los Angeles, hundreds of protesters marched onto the busy 101 freeway Thursday night, bringing traffic to a stop. They vandalized property, threw bottles and launched fireworks. They burned a giant papier-mache Trump head. A woman in Los Angeles assaulted a police officer, hitting him on the head with handcuffs. On Wednesday night, 28 were arrested. On Sunday, the number of demonstrators swelled to 8,000.
On Friday evening, police reported burning projectiles and bottles thrown at them and graffiti spray-painted. Interstate 5 was closed in two places. Around midnight on Friday, a demonstrator in Portland was shot by an 18-year-old man “wearing black, dark hoodie and saggy blue jeans” who was angry about traffic being stalled. Another 71 were arrested Saturday evening, mostly for disorderly conduct, with 67 booked into jail overnight.
Oakland, Seattle, Indianapolis and Other Cities
Though the protests in Portland and Los Angeles have gotten much of the media’s attention, protests in cities all across the country are descending into violence.
Protesters in Oakland started fires in street intersections and in dumpsters. One led to the closure of a Bay Area Rapid Transit station. Buildings were smashed, and a federal building was set on fire. “Full communism” was spray painted on a Wells Fargo bank in downtown Oakland. Protesters smashed a police car and put it on fire.
Only about 100 protesters showed up to riot in Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood, but they were violent. According to KIRO 7, “they set fires, blocked traffic and threw bottles.”
Two police officers were injured by protesters throwing rocks and seven people arrested on Saturday evening in Indianapolis. In Denver, protesters briefly shut down an interstate. The protest in New York City on Tuesday outside of Trump Tower swelled Wednesday night to 100,000, and Friday evening police arrested 11 people for disorderly conduct. A Black Lives Matter ‘anti-bullying’ advocate pushed an elderly Trump supporter to ground, cutting his head, outside Trump Tower in NYC.
So many protesters hit the streets in downtown Chicago on Wednesday that the area was “shut down.” Protesters stopped traffic on Interstate 95 in Miami. Protesters blocked traffic in Madison, Wisconsin and Interstate 80 near Iowa City. In New Orleans, the famous Lee Circle monument was completely covered in graffiti, and the phrase “Die whites die” spray painted in surrounding areas. An effigy of Trump was burned and a bank’s windows shattered.
In Oakland, demonstrators spray painted “Kill Trump” graffiti. Demonstrators in Dallas dragged and kicked an effigy of Trump and smashed windows. Protesters in Philadelphia say they intend to continue demonstrating every day until Trump’s inauguration.
Violent Incidents and Threats
Though the protests have gotten most attention, individuals in other places have suffered acts of anti-Trump violence. Here are some examples:
A high school girl near San Francisco was beaten to the ground by another girl after she posted her support of Trump on Instagram.
A mob of young black men beat a white man in Chicago reportedly because they believed he had voted for Trump, then dragged him through the streets hanging out the back of his car.
An 11-year-old boy in Texas was attacked by classmates after telling them he voted for Trump in the class mock election, putting him in crutches.
A Latina woman in California said on live CNN that “people have to die.”
Calls have been made on Twitter to assassinate Trump.
At the same time, Trump opponents are making up incidents of violence by Trump supporters — and getting caught fabricating them. A Muslim student at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette admitted to police that she made up a story about having her hijab ripped off and wallet stolen by two white male Trump supporters.
Trump and Obama Respond
Trump expressed his disappointment, tweeting, “[P]rofessional protesters, incited by the media, are protesting. Very unfair!” Rudy Giuliani described the demonstrators as “a bunch of spoiled cry-babies.” Bill Bennett described the riots as a “tantrum [that] our gal lost, so we’re going to protest.” Breitbart sarcastically characterized the protests as “triggered.”
Just had a very open and successful presidential election. Now professional protesters, incited by the media, are protesting. Very unfair!
President Obama could call on the rioters to stop the violence, but hasn’t. Considering most of the rioting is taking place in the downtown areas of large, blue cities, the demonstrators are primarily causing damage to themselves. (For more from the author of “Left Reacts With Violence, Death Threats After Trump Win” please click HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/25097114163_a9ede4b342_b-5.jpg6831024Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2016-11-14 22:20:432016-11-14 22:20:43Left Reacts With Violence, Death Threats After Trump Win
In a wide-ranging interview with 60 Minutes that aired on Sunday night, President-elect Donald Trump reiterated his vow to nominate a Supreme Court justice who will vote to overturn the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion nationwide.
“I’m pro-life. The judges will be pro-life,” said Trump, adding that if Roe v. Wade “ever were overturned, it would go back to the states.” Pressed by reporter Lesley Stahl on the consequences of abortion legalization being left up to the individual states, Trump said that women who want abortions will “have to go to another state” if the one in which they live bans the procedure.
During the campaign, Trump promised to sign a late-term abortion ban, vowed to defund Planned Parenthood as long as it conducts abortions, and to make permanent an annually-approved budget rider that bans federal funding for most abortions. While Trump’s positions are being widely hailed by pro-life groups, Trump’s answer also suggests that he would not try to make abortion widely illegal outright.
As for the High Court itself, Trump has promised to make nominating a replacement for deceased Justice Antonin Scalia a top priority once in office. This promise and others on abortion and religious liberty helped drive faith-based voters to back Trump. ABC News reports that 57 percent of voters who considered the Court their number one issue backed Trump, compared to 40 percent for Clinton. Exit polls showed that over one-fifth of voters said the Court was their most important issue.
The full exchange between Trump and Stahl on abortion and the Court is below:
Lesley Stahl: One of the things you’re going to obviously get an opportunity to do, is name someone to the Supreme Court. And I assume you’ll do that quickly?
Donald Trump: Yes. Very important.
Lesley Stahl: During the campaign, you said that you would appoint justices who were against abortion rights. Will you appoint– are you looking to appoint a justice who wants to overturn Roe v. Wade?
Donald Trump: So look, here’s what’s going to happen– I’m going to– I’m pro-life. The judges will be pro-life. They’ll be very—
Lesley Stahl: But what about overturning this law–
Donald Trump: Well, there are a couple of things. They’ll be pro-life, they’ll be– in terms of the whole gun situation, we know the Second Amendment and everybody’s talking about the Second Amendment and they’re trying to dice it up and change it, they’re going to be very pro-Second Amendment. But having to do with abortion if it ever were overturned, it would go back to the states. So it would go back to the states and–
Lesley Stahl: Yeah, but then some women won’t be able to get an abortion?
Donald Trump: No, it’ll go back to the states.
Lesley Stahl: By state—no some —
Donald Trump: Yeah.
Donald Trump: Yeah, well, they’ll perhaps have to go, they’ll have to go to another state.
Lesley Stahl: And that’s OK?
Donald Trump: Well, we’ll see what happens. It’s got a long way to go, just so you understand. That has a long, long way to go.
(For more from the author of “Trump: ‘Very Important’ Supreme Court Nominee Will Overturn Roe v. Wade, Let States Control Abortion” please click HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/baby-372742_960_720.jpg640960Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2016-11-14 22:15:082016-11-14 22:15:08Trump: ‘Very Important’ Supreme Court Nominee Will Overturn Roe v. Wade, Let States Control Abortion
President-elect Donald Trump’s belief that last summer’s gay marriage decision by the U.S. Supreme Court is settled law says a lot about where the incoming administration’s priorities are going to be. And it points to some potential future political problems from the federal courts, especially when it comes to immigration.
“It’s irrelevant,” he said on CBS’ Sunday’s airing of “60 Minutes,” regarding his personal views on gay marriage. “These cases have gone to the Supreme Court, they’ve been settled, and I’m fine with that.”
Firstly, this is a clear deviation from Trump’s stated position on Roe v. Wade in the same interview, which he and his surrogates have pledged to overturn. That clearly signals that, for some reason, SCOTUS railroading state sovereignty on making their own abortion laws isn’t the final word, but doing so for the kinds of unions that states recognize somehow is.
The myth of judicial supremacy drove one of the greatest narratives of the 2016 election cycle — that Americans had to get out the vote to decide on an executive who would pick the right oligarchs to legislate from the federal bench. Now it’s back, and some things apparently are “settled law,” while others are not.
Setting the inconsistencies here aside, conceding the myth of judicial supremacy as the president-elect has done here is going to create a host of problems down the road.
The transition team is already putting up a hard front on immigration, by staffing people like Kris Kobach, Kansas’ current secretary of state who helped write Arizona’s SB 1070. The state law, passed in 2010, drew intense criticism and boycotts from open-borders advocates for doing nothing more than giving police the ability to enforce America’s immigration laws. SB 1070 was gutted once and for all in a legal settlement with open-borders groups in September.
If the Trump administration and Congress are willing to kowtow to the Supreme Court’s decision in Obergefell v. Hodges, they shouldn’t hold their breath on getting any sort of meaningful reform accomplished when it comes to immigration, either. If the federal courts and the Supreme Court start getting ahold of forthcoming immigration bills and first-100 directives, we’re going to have a lot of really problematic “settled law” on our hands.
Despite the technical victory immigration enforcement advocates won in U.S. v. Texas earlier this year, the federal circuit courts have still been, for the most part, openly hostile to any sort of immigration control at the state level whatsoever. This hostility has reared its head in everything from forcing Arizona to issue drivers licenses to illegals to mandating that six states completely ignore ICE while voiding thousands of illegal immigration detainers.
But considering it’s hard to imagine that the Trump administration would take judicial tampering in immigration reforms lying down, the president-elect’s statement that Obergefell is “settled law” is probably best understood as an indicator of future priorities. That shouldn’t come as a shock to anyone, given his public stance in spring regarding bathroom bill battles, and his relationship with Peter Thiel.
However, despite this and other concessions that Trump has made to the LGBT community, others are still losing their minds and warning of the forthcoming homophobic cataclysm that will arise from a Trump-Pence administration. Following last week’s immediate election reactions (or, overreactions, rather), similar voices are now decrying the transition team’s inclusion of former Ohio secretary of state Ken Blackwell as a sign of an oncoming assault on gay rights.
Huffington Post’s “Queer Voices” editor-at-large, Michelangelo Signorile points to comments made by Blackwell eight years about handling same-sex attraction and warns, “Expect each of these individuals and more religious bigots to have prominent positions in the Trump administration.”
Again, the heightened anxieties despite Trump’s historically moderate stance on the issue is beyond perplexing. Perhaps the shocking realization that a sizable chunk of the American people disagree with your agenda, that said voters’ First Amendment rights are no longer on the chopping block, and that the shiny new federal death ray you were going to use to obliterate the latter isn’t coming is a lot to deal with all at once.
Proponents of natural marriage have already made peace with the fact that many of their fellow citizens don’t see eye-to-eye with them. It’s time to realize that common-sense compromise on the subject at this juncture (like First Amendment Defense Act, which the president-elect has pledged to sign) isn’t persecution or discrimination; it’s a way forward in a republic that’s deeply divided on a fundamental issue of public and private import.
While it was grossly unrealistic in the first place that the Supreme Court — even with a shiny new originalist justice on board — would overturn Obergefell v. Hodges, it looks like the issue won’t face much pressure from the oncoming administration the next four years. However, if the Trump administration actually wants to clamp down on illegal immigration against the forces of an overwhelmingly open-borders federal judiciary, the president-elect might want to be careful using phrases like “settled law.” (For more from the author of “Why Trump’s ‘Settled Law’ Comments on Gay Marriage Could Be Bad News for His Immigration Agenda” please click HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/29119452334_7f6316c652_b-2.jpg6831024Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2016-11-14 22:04:202016-11-14 22:04:20Why Trump’s ‘Settled Law’ Comments on Gay Marriage Could Be Bad News for His Immigration Agenda
The 2016 presidential election is a textbook example of why the Founders, in their infinite wisdom, chose the Electoral College method of electing the president. Their elegant compromise ensures that states with small population still have a say in who is elected president. The results from Election Day 2016 highlight this exquisitely. If you remove anyone of a handful of large population states from the popular vote count, Trump won the rest of the country convincingly.
Six days after the election, the race has been called in 48 states and the District of Columbia. Donald Trump has a 290 to 228 Electoral College vote lead. Trump is leading by approximately 12,000 votes in Michigan, and trails by a smaller margin in New Hampshire. If those two states finished where the vote is now, Trump will have 306 Electoral College votes to Hillary Clinton’s 232.
However, Trump is trailing slightly in the popular vote at the same time. Here is where the national popular vote count stands six days after the election.
Clinton: 61,039,676
Trump: 60,371,193
That is a 668,483 vote difference, or less than 0.6 percent of all the votes cast for president.
The Electoral College was created as a check on large population states. If there was a true popular vote, a handful of states, or even just one, could perpetually pick the president. Today, that state would most probably be California. Here is where the California popular vote stands six days after the election.
Clinton: 5,589,936
Trump: 3,021,095
That is a difference of 2,568,841 votes. This means that Donald Trump won the rest of the country by about 1.9 million votes. If you look at similar numbers in 2012, Mitt Romney would have lost the popular vote in the 49 states other than California plus the District of Columbia.
In 2016, the Electoral College is acting exactly as designed. In our federalist system of government, the people in vast swaths of this land did not have their voice drowned out by the interests of one state.
It is just that simple. (For more from the author of “This One State Proves Why the Electoral College Exists” please click HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/1024px-A_coloured_voting_box.svg-1.png10241024Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2016-11-14 21:59:552016-11-20 02:33:39This One State Proves Why the Electoral College Exists
Congress returns this week for its lame-duck session—that period of time between November and the end of the year where accountability in Washington is at its lowest.
Voters aren’t really paying attention now that the main event—the election—is over, and retiring and newly defeated members are no longer held accountable for the votes they’re about to cast.
In short, this is prime time for the backroom deals, tax increases, bloated spending bills, and general arm-twisting that have given Washington such a bad name.
This time around, members of Congress will face pressure to “clear the decks” for the new president—code words for throwing everything but the kitchen sink into a giant bill and passing it as fast as possible on their way out the door, hopefully while no one is looking.
This is particularly true when it comes to spending bills. The lame-duck Congress must pass a funding bill by Dec. 9. House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell have previously discussed passing an omnibus spending bill—that is, a thousand-page package containing all 12 appropriations bills—to fund the government for the entire year.
Now that Donald Trump is the president-elect, such a move would be a mistake.
Come January, the Republicans will have unified control of the presidency, the House of Representatives, and the Senate. Passing a funding bill that expires well into the new term of the president-elect would bind the new Congress, and limit the legislative options of the new president.
As conservatives have pointed out—most recently in a memo by the Conservative Action Project—any spending bill longer than two months will significantly diminish the ability of Republicans to impose their legislative agenda in the new year.
Furthermore, passing an omnibus spending bill would be inherently undemocratic. On Nov. 8, the voters expressed their will and elected a new president, and a new Congress. For this current, lame-duck Congress to pass a spending bill that will restrict the ability of these newly elected representatives—including the new president—from implementing their priorities is an affront to the very principles on which electoral government stands.
Put another way, a deck-clearing, omnibus spending bill will effectively hamstring Trump from implementing key portions of his 100-day agenda.
The wall that Trump wants to build along the southern border? It won’t be immediately possible if this current Congress passes an omnibus spending bill in December. The repeal and replacement of Obamacare would likely be delayed as well.
The mandate the voters laid out is very clear, and this current Congress would do well to heed it. Ryan and McConnell should not waste their time negotiating with a departing president at the expense of the president-elect’s ability to do what the voters elected him to do. (For more from the author of “Trump’s Agenda Will Be at Risk If Congress Passes Big Spending Bill in December” please click HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/8567825104_3e647ea1f8_b-4.jpg6831024Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2016-11-14 21:53:202016-11-14 21:53:20Trump’s Agenda Will Be at Risk If Congress Passes Big Spending Bill in December
President Barack Obama predicted Monday that his successor might keep some of his major legacy items such as the Iran nuclear deal, the Paris climate agreement, and potentially even Obamacare, stating that President-elect Donald Trump isn’t ideological.
Trump will find that “reality will assert itself,” Obama said during his first post-election press conference.
“On a lot of issues, what you’re going to see is that now comes governing, now is the hard part,” Obama said.
The president had mostly cordial words for Trump, a Republican, whom he had a war of words with during the presidential campaign as he stumped for Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.
Obama doesn’t believe Trump, a longtime New York businessman, will enter office with a particularly ideological agenda.
“He is coming to this office with fewer set hard and fast policy prescriptions than a lot of other presidents,” Obama said. “I don’t think he is ideological and ultimately he is pragmatic. That can serve him well as long as he’s got good people around him and he’s got a good sense of direction.”
Obama asserted this a day after a Trump interview on CBS’s “60 Minutes” aired, where the incoming president said he wanted to maintain some provisions of the Affordable Care Act, such as requiring coverage for pre-existing conditions and allowing people to remain on their parents’ health insurance up to age 26.
“This has been the holy grail for Republicans for the last six or seven years, we’ve got to kill Obamacare,” Obama said, later adding, “It’s one thing to characterize this as not working when it’s just an abstraction. Suddenly you’re in charge and you’re going to repeal it, well, what happens to those 20 million people that have health insurance?”
Obama also urged Trump not to reverse his 2012 Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, an executive action that shields the children of illegal immigrants from deportation.
The controversial Iran nuclear deal and the Paris climate agreement are matters Obama anticipates Trump might keep.
“Do I think the new administration will make some changes? Absolutely,” Obama said. “But these international agreements, the tradition has been that you carry them forward across administrations, particularly if after you examine them, you find out they are doing good for us.”
Obama defended the Iran deal as holding Iran accountable. He said:
The main argument against it was that Iran wouldn’t abide by the deal, that they would cheat. We now have over a year of evidence that they have abided by the agreement. That’s not just my opinion. That’s not just people in the administration. That’s the opinion of Israeli military intelligence officers who were part of a government that vehemently opposed the deal. So my suspicion is that when the president-elect comes in and meets with his Republican colleagues on the Hill, that they will look at the facts, because to unravel a deal that is working and preventing Iran from pursuing a nuclear weapon would be hard to explain.
Obama noted both the Iran nuclear agreement and the Paris climate agreement were multilateral deals, which will make it more difficult for the United States to withdraw unilaterally.
“Now, you’ve got 200 countries that have signed up for this thing,” Obama said. “The good news is, what we’ve been able to show over the last five, six, eight years is that it’s possible to grow the economy and possible to bring down carbon emissions as well.” (For more from the author of “Obama Predicts Trump Will Maintain Iran Nuclear, Paris Climate Deals” please click HERE)
