(Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama challenged congressional Republicans who have criticized their presidential nominee, Donald Trump, to disavow his candidacy, noting that they have maintained their endorsements even after "repeated denunciations" of his remarks.
"The question I think they have to ask themselves is, if you are repeatedly having to say in very strong terms that what he has said is unacceptable, why are you still endorsing him?" Obama said Tuesday at a news conference at the White House following a meeting with Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong. "What does this say about your party that this is your standard bearer? This isn’t a situation where you have an episodic gaffe. This is daily. Weekly."
Trump has become embroiled in a feud with a Muslim couple, Khizr and Ghazala Khan, whose son Humayun, an Army captain, was killed in Iraq in 2004. Khizr Khan denounced Trump’s proposal to bar Muslim immigration to the U.S. in an address to the Democratic National Convention last week, and Trump in turn lashed out, suggesting that Ghazala Khan wasn’t permitted to speak for herself and that Khizr Khan unfairly criticized him.
While Trump has become practiced at overcoming remarks that would be politically toxic to more conventional politicians, he now trails his Democratic opponent, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, by about 4.4 percentage points, according to an average of head-to-head polls by RealClearPolitics.
In additional remarks at a news conference and in interviews last week, Trump also appeared to be confused or ignorant of Russia’s military operations in Ukraine since 2014; asked the Russian government to hack into Clinton’s e-mails -- he later said he was being sarcastic -- and criticized four-star Marine Corps General John Allen after he also denounced Trump’s policies at the Democratic convention.
"There has to come a point at which you say someone who makes those kinds of statements doesn’t have the judgment, the temperament, the understanding to occupy the most powerful position in the world," Obama said.
The president plans to hit the campaign trail in earnest with Clinton in September. Obama’s goal is motivate his base of young and minority voters, some of whom are uneasy or apathetic about Clinton as the party’s 2016 nominee.
To contact the reporter on this story: Angela Greiling Keane in Washington at agreilingkea@bloomberg.net. To contact the editors responsible for this story: Craig Gordon at cgordon39@bloomberg.net, Alex Wayne, Joe Sobczyk
RECOMMENDED FOR YOU
POPULAR