"Strange things" can happen in politics when voters are scared, President Barack Obama said on Thursday, and the country's angst is showing in the Republican and Democratic primaries.
Obama wasn't finally conceding that things had gone wrong on his watch, though. His comments were just aimed at ensuring Democrats don't take anything for granted this fall, White House spokesman Eric Schultz told reporters on Air Force One after a West Coast fundraising swing reported on by
The Associated Press.
Obama's comments came at the San Francisco-area home of venture capitalist Steve Westly two days after billionaire businessman Donald Trump rode that wave of voter anger to a commanding win in New Hampshire's Republican presidential primary. Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders did the same in the state's Democratic primary, trouncing longtime front-runner Hillary Clinton by double digits.
Obama on Thursday also called the Supreme Court's decision to delay implementation of his administration's Clean Power Plan "unusual" and expressed confidence that the White House would prevail, reported
Reuters.
"We’re very confident that we’re on strong legal footing here," he told Democratic donors in his first public remarks about the move.
In Washington, Gina McCarthy, Obama's head of the Environmental Protection Agency, told state energy and environmental regulators that the ruling "is not going to slow us down."
The Supreme Court on Tuesday delivered a blow to the plan, the centerpiece of Obama's climate change policy and backbone of his administration's commitment to cut greenhouse gas emissions pledged last year in Paris, said Reuters.
Obama said the country is at "an interesting political moment" but noted that it's still early in the process for choosing the presidential nominees, said the AP.
Obama said people remember the dire economic straits the country faced at the dawn of his presidency, when the economy was shedding hundreds of thousands of jobs per month and people were losing their homes and retirement savings. He said people are concerned about income inequality and laboring under a political system they believe works against their interests.
"That disquiet, that concern is expressing itself in the Republican Party as well as in the Democratic Party and we have to listen to that and we have to pay attention to that and be mindful of it," Obama told several hundred people who paid up to $33,400 to attend the event held in the sloping backyard of Westly's home in Atherton, California. "Because when people are scared, then strange things can happen in politics."
"We can get a politics that is not about bringing people together but is about us and them and looking for somebody to blame," Obama said.
He said the country never moves forward "when it's based on us and them. It moves forward when it's based on us. Period."
Obama sounded a similar theme at a fundraiser Thursday night in Los Angeles. He said to fight the fear "means that we're going to have to have a Democrat in the White House after I'm gone to make sure that we continue the progress that we've made."
Obama spent Thursday raising money for fellow Democrats at four events. Before arriving at Westly's home, the president attended a private event in Palo Alto, California, that benefited the campaign arm for Democratic Senate candidates.
The president flew afterward to Los Angeles, where he attended two Democratic Party fundraisers, including one at the home of entertainment lawyer Aaron Rosenberg and his husband, Danny Rose, executive producer of "Scorpion." Grammy Award-winning singer John Legend warmed up the crowd of about 340 people for Obama, who addressed supporters as Clinton and Sanders debated in Milwaukee.
While in Los Angeles, Obama taped an appearance on "The Ellen DeGeneres Show" that's scheduled to air Friday, said the AP
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