It's Obama vs Trump's White House on Charlie Kirk killing: ‘And that makes this a dangerous moment’
Barack Obama said he sees broader problems with Donald Trump's stances, to which White House responded by calling him “architect of modern political division"
Former US President Barack Obama, in his first detailed response after right-wing activist Charlie Kirk was killed, has said the country is at “an inflection point”. He accused President Donald Trump, who counted Kirk as a major ally, has divided the country rather than bring people together.
He addressed head-on what he apparently sees as a deeper reasons behind such violence. He said he sees the role of a president in a crisis “to constantly remind us of the ties that bind us together".
Obama said he disagreed with many of Kirk’s stances, but that “doesn’t negate the fact that what happened was a tragedy".
He underlined, however, the way Trump, his aides and supporters spoke after Kirk's killing, calling political opponents “vermin and enemies”. This, as per Obama, showed “a broader problem”. The Democratic leader was responding to a moderator's questions at a Tuesday night even as he addressed Trump's rhetoric after the assassination.
To this, Trump's White House responded on Wednesday by calling Obama “the architect of modern political division in America".
Obama said a democratic system must be based on being able to disagree without resorting to violence. And whatever happens even to those considered “on the other side of the argument”, that’s a threat to all, he added. "And we have to be clear and forthright in condemning them,” he said at the event in Erie, Pennsylvania, according to a transcript obtained by news agency AP.
While usually low-key ever since he left office in 2016, Obama posted after Kirk's assassination that even while it was not known what motivated the person who killed Charlie Kirk, “this kind of despicable violence has no place in our democracy”.
He also spoke about his leadership following the 2015 killing of nine Black parishioners at a South Carolina church, and Republican President George W Bush’s actions following the September 11 terrorist attacks.
Calling political violence “anathema to what it means to be a democratic country", Obama also mentioned the June shooting deaths of Democratic leader Minnesota Melissa Hortman and her husband in their home.
While Trump is in London for state visit, White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson responded: “Obama used every opportunity to sow division and pit Americans against each other, and following his presidency more Americans felt Obama divided the country than felt he united it."
Obama, however, also referenced Trump’s recent takeover of law and order in Washington by deploying the National Guard.
“What you’re seeing, I think, is the sense that through executive power, many of the guardrails and norms that I thought I had to abide by as president of the United States, that George Bush thought he had to abide by as president of the United States, that suddenly those no longer apply,” Obama said. “And that makes this a dangerous moment.”
Obama also applauded Utah's Republican Governor Spencer Cox’s calls for civility in public response to Charlie Kirk’s killing in the state. Obama said that while he and the Republican governor “disagree on a whole bunch of stuff", Cox's messaging around how to respond to Kirk’s death shows “that it is possible for us to disagree while abiding by a basic code of how we should engage in public debate”, an AP report said.
