Trump: Obama's Job Speech Is Just Campaigning

Donald Trump said Wednesday President Barack Obama’s jobs address to a joint session of Congress tonight will be nothing more than a campaign speech and the real estate mogul does not expect much “substance.”
 

“It will absolutely be a campaign speech. Who can blame him? I think he’s out there as hard as he can campaigning,” Trump told Fox News’ Greta Van Susteren. “The fact is he has made many speeches over a short period of time and continues to make speeches — but we get no substance — everyone is saying there’s not much he’s going to be doing.

“He could have done everything he wanted to do when he [had] the Democratic House, Senate, he’s the president — instead he focused on Obamacare,” Trump said. “After Obamacare everyone took a vacation — nothing happened because everyone was so unhappy. The Republicans took over the House. Now you have this situation that is untenable — and there’s a lack of leadership.

“So he really had all of that,” he continued. “[He] could have raised the debt ceiling without having to go through what he went through and it would have been a lot easier,” he continued. “There would have been a revolt in the country, but it would have been easier for him.”

Van Susteren asked Trump whether Obama can “redeem himself” and get re-elected to a second term.

“I guess you could say there is always something you can do — but I think the public is fed up with speeches. I don’t think they want that hear his speech — I think they want to see action not [a] speech,” Trump said. “I think it is going to be very hard because even if things work out well, it takes a year to kick in — it doesn’t happen the following day. It is not like: Oh, gee, the following morning everybody is working.’

“Everything has been so far off — whether it is his dealings with other nations, whether it is the fact that so many other nations are taking our jobs and manufacturing our goods and manipulating their currencies,” he said. “And so many different things are happening that [are] bad for this country.”

Van Susteren then asked whether the 2009 stimulus bill was a good idea.

“People weren’t ready for it — they talked about let’s start digging — there was nothing to dig because it takes a long time in this country to get permits . . . if you want to build something in this country it takes years and years,” Trump said.

“You have to go through environment problems. and environmental criteria that make it almost impossible to go quickly — let alone go at all. In some cases you can’t even build,” he said. “So they weren’t ready in terms of the projects — and probably most of the projects . . . were wrong.”