Meeting the press for first time since Trump’s win, Obama says new president-elect is committed to NATO
President Obama reiterated that U.S. support for NATO “will continue” during a news conference Monday, Nov. 11. (The Washington Post)
President Obama held his first news conference since voters sharply rejected his candidate and his party at the polls last week, reassuring people at home and abroad that Donald Trump was committed to governing in a more pragmatic fashion than he had adopted on the campaign trail.
President Obama reiterated that U.S. support for NATO “will continue” during a news conference Monday, Nov. 11. (The Washington Post)
President Obama held his first news conference since voters sharply rejected his candidate and his party at the polls last week, reassuring people at home and abroad that Donald Trump was committed to governing in a more pragmatic fashion than he had adopted on the campaign trail.
“This office has a way of waking you up,” said Obama, who met with Trump for the first time last week. “Campaigning is different from governing. I think he recognizes that.”
Obama faced reporters crammed into the James S. Brady Briefing Room on Monday before leaving Washington for a week-long foreign trip to Greece, Germany and Peru, where he will meet with more than a dozen foreign leaders with their own set of questions about where the United States is headed under its next president.
The president said one of the most important missions he has in the coming week is to carry a message from Trump that the New York businessman is committed to upholding the NATO and transatlantic alliance.
Obama said he intends to tell European leaders that “there is no weakening” in America’s commitment “toward maintaining a strong and robust NATO alliance.”
President Obama said during a news conference Monday that it's "healthy" for the Democratic Party to go through reflection. "When your team loses, everyone gets deflated," Obama said.(Victoria Walker/The Washington Post)
President Obama said during a news conference Monday that it's "healthy" for the Democratic Party to go through reflection. "When your team loses, everyone gets deflated," Obama said.(Victoria Walker/The Washington Post)
The president declined to answer a question on whether he still saw Trump as unfit to serve in the Oval Office — a criticism he had leveled more than once during the campaign — and instead emphasized that he had counseled the president-elect to reach out to some constituencies that had not supported his presidential bid.
“It is important to send some signals of unity” to minorities, women and other groups “that were concerned about the tenor of the campaign,” Obama said.
“And I don’t think any president comes in saying to himself, ‘I want to make people angry, or alienate half the country,’” Obama added, saying he saw Trump as “pragmatic” rather than “ideological.”
“That could serve him well,” the president said. He noted that Trump will come into office with “fewer set hard and fast policy prescriptions” than most of his predecessors.
Obama also acknowledged that Democrats need to engage in “some reflection” about the way forward after last week’s loss, which was punctated by a poor showing in both rural areas and the outer suburbs in swing states.
“I believe that we have better ideas, but I also believe that good ideas don’t matter if people don’t hear them,” he said. “We have to compete everywhere. We have to show up everywhere.”
Pressed repeatedly by reporters on how he viewed Trump’s character, the president praised him as a politician rather than as policymaker.
President Obama said that his administration "stands ready" to assist President-elect Donald Trump and his staff as they transition to the White House in January. (Victoria Walker/The Washington Post)
“What’s clear is that he was able to tap into, yes, the anxieties, but also the enthusiasm of his voters in a way that was impressive,” he said. He observed that Trump was “impervious to events that might have sunk another candidate. That’s powerful stuff.”
President Obama said that his administration "stands ready" to assist President-elect Donald Trump and his staff as they transition to the White House in January. (Victoria Walker/The Washington Post)
“What’s clear is that he was able to tap into, yes, the anxieties, but also the enthusiasm of his voters in a way that was impressive,” he said. He observed that Trump was “impervious to events that might have sunk another candidate. That’s powerful stuff.”
“Do I have concerns? Absolutely,” the president added. “He and I differ on a whole bunch of issues.”
And Obama cautioned that there are “certain elements of his temperament that will not serve him well, unless he recognizes them and corrects” them.
Going before the the press just after a major election is a rite of passage for the president. In Obama’s case, only one of these exchanges has been celebratory. While he could embrace his 2012 reelection victory, both the 2010 and 2014 midterms — and now, the election of his successor — have amounted to serious setbacks.
Six years ago, Obama called the Democrats’ congressional losses a “shellacking’; in 2014, he declined to characterize the results, saying instead to the American people, “I hear you.”
Obama hopes to use the trip to reassure America’s allies and to shore up some of his top international priorities before leaving office. He and other leaders will discuss issues including the global economy, the sanctions Western nations have imposed against Russia in retaliation for its annexation of Crimea, instability in the Middle East and the refugee crisis that has emerged in its wake.
After the news conference, Obama was scheduled to hold a conference call with congressional Democrats, who are still reeling from both the White House loss and the fact that they made just small gains in both the House and Senate.
Trump’s victory is sure to dominate Obama’s interactions with reporters and foreign leaders in the coming week. On Tuesday, the president will meet with Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, before departing Wednesday for Berlin. During his stop in Germany, he will meet with Chancellor Angela Merkel, as well as the leaders of Britain, France, Italy and Spain. At the end of the week, Obama will head to Lima, Peru, for the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, where he will attend meetings with leaders from Asia and Latin America.
“Look, we certainly expect that the election will be the primary topic on people’s minds everywhere we go,” said White House deputy security adviser Ben Rhodes in a call with reporters Friday. “We have one president at a time, and so President Obama, of course, will be running through the tape on January 20th” on his top international and domestic priorities.
“We will run through the tape with the implementation of those policies, and then the new team will make their own determinations,” Rhodes said. “And we respect that every administration will make its own judgment.”
Leaders around the world are pondering whether the international order, with America at the center, can be sustained given the challenge it is facing not just in the United States but in nations ranging from the Philippines to Brazil.
In a sign of how Obama has already shifted into the mode of an outgoing president, he spoke with Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto on Monday about taking “steps to solidify the relationship and institutionalize mechanisms of cooperation” that the two countries have established together, according to a White House statement.
Peña Nieto had initially been critical of Trump’s pledge to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, at Mexico’s expense, but subsequently softened his tone and invited Trump to meet with him in Mexico in September.
