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Donald Trump told Fox News that President Obama visited a mosque because “maybe he feels comfortable there.”
Said Trump: “We have a lot of problems in this country. There are a lot of places he can go, and he chose a mosque.”
He added: “That’s his decision. That’s fine.”
Los Angeles Times: “Targeting technologies pioneered by Obama’s campaign have made it possible for outsider candidates like Sanders to turn out Iowans who a decade ago might have showed up at a rally and then faded away before the caucuses. Now, computers can quickly link them up with a caucus coach who can walk them through the bewildering voting process and even make sure they have a ride on election night.”
“But ultimately, much of the work of sealing a commitment from voters happens through human contact. And to avoid the disappointment fellow Vermonter Howard Dean endured in the 2004 caucuses, when he failed to leverage similar insurgent momentum, the Sanders campaign has been rushing to build the infrastructure to capture enthusiasm and turn it into votes.”
At a campaign event in Iowa, Hillary Clinton “lit up when a voter asked her if she would consider appointing the president to the Supreme Court should she win the White House,” ABC News reports.
Said Clinton: “Wow, what a great idea. No one has ever suggested that to me, I love that, wow. He may have a few other things to do but I tell you that’s a great idea.”
Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates suggested on MSNBC that President Obama has “centralized power and operational activities of the government in the White House to a degree that I think is unparalleled.”
He added: “I don’t see the kind of strong people around the President who will push back on him. I will give him credit. I pushed back on him a lot and he never shut me down. He never told me to be quiet or refused to see me or anything like that. But I don’t see people around him like that now. “
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) told Yahoo News that he disputes President Obama’s diagnosis of American politics as toxic and tribal and sharply disagrees with the president’s proposed cures.
Reflecting on nearly eight years of working with Obama, McConnell also described him as “a very smart guy” but “a little preachy.”
“Talk to me if he wins. Then we’ll have a conversation about how responsible I am for him.”
— President Obama, in an interview on the Today Show, on whether he is responsible for the rise of Donald Trump.
“As his eldest son faced the prospect of resigning as Delaware’s attorney general amid health concerns, Vice President Joe Biden received an offer that floored him: financial support from his boss, President Obama,” CNN reports.
“Obama, Biden remembered, pushed back vehemently on the thought of Biden and his wife selling their home in Wilmington, Delaware.”
Recalled Biden: “He got up and he said, ‘Don’t sell that house. Promise me you won’t sell the house. He said, “I’ll give you the money. Whatever you need, I’ll give you the money.'”
“For the final time, President Obama will mount the rostrum in the House chamber on Tuesday to deliver a State of the Union address. But this time, aides said, he will not bring with him a long list of proposals that will languish in Congress — after all these years, a victory of experience over hope,” the New York Times reports.
“Instead, Mr. Obama plans a thematic message that effectively will be as much a campaign agenda as a governing document. While not on the ballot himself, Mr. Obama hopes to use what may be the largest television audience left in his presidency to frame the debate about who should replace him and where the country should go from here.”
Donald Trump brushed off questions about whether President Obama is a natural-born citizen, Business Insider reports.
Said Trump: “Who knows? Who cares right now? We’re talking about something else, OK?”
He added: “I mean, I have my own theory on Obama. Someday I’ll write a book. I’ll do another book. It’ll do very successfully.”
Pete Souza: “One of the best and most challenging aspects of my job is whittling down a year’s worth of photographs to the final selections for my annual Year in Photographs. Every year, I attempt to keep it less than 100 photos — and every year I fail in that goal.”
President Obama is returning to the rancor of the nation’s capital after two weeks of vacation in his native Hawaii, saying he’s “fired up” for his final year in office and ready to tackle unfinished business, the AP reports.
Obama gives his final State of the Union address on January 12.
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Rep. Steve King (R-IA) told the Boston Herald that President Obamap’s upbringing in Indonesia has given him an entirely different idea of what America should be like.
Said King: “We just should remember that, when — where we grew up is — when we were in our grade school that’s when the world was right and we tend to want to recreate that idyllic scene in our adulthood thinking that’s the best thing for America. And in my case, it is. I grew up with Fun with Dick and Jane. Wonderful. But you know, while I was going on, he was going to a school in Indonesia, so his idea of America is entirely different than the idea that most Americans have of what we ought to be like, and he’s filling our country up with people that will continue to attack us.”
“I sit here all day trying to persuade people to do the things they ought to have sense enough to do without my persuading them… That’s all the powers of the President amount to.”
— President Obama, in an interview with Bill Simmons.
“He said, ‘Boehner, man, I’m gonna miss you.’ Yes you are, Mr. President. Yes you are.”
— Former Speaker John Boehner, in an interview with Fox News, recounting a conversation with President Obama.
George Condon: “That is what President Obama did Friday when asked if he can use his ‘moral authority’ and bully pulpit to reach those who see gun violence as a way out of their personal troubles. It is such a rare moment because presidents have all the might of the U.S. military, all the reach of a sprawling government bureaucracy, and all the moral suasion of the office at their disposal. Presidents almost never admit that they can’t do something.”
“That this president did just that provides a valuable insight into his profound exasperation at the continuing domestic death toll from gun violence.”
Wonk Wire: The U.S. is much more violent than other countries
President Bush rebuked Jeb Bush after the Republican presidential candidate shrugged off any need for government action in the wake of the massacre at a community college in Oregon, the New York Times reports.
Said Obama: “The American people should hear that and make their own judgments based on the fact that every couple of months, we have a mass shooting. They can decide whether they consider that ‘stuff happens.’”
“The exchange between Mr. Obama and Mr. Bush reflected the paralysis that has settled over the issue of new gun control legislation in the United States. Virtually no member of Congress issued a statement after the Oregon shootings arguing for or against new gun control measures, and a number of the 2016 Republican presidential candidates were dismissive of new gun control measures as well.”
Taegan Goddard
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire -- which for more than two decades has been one of the nation's most influential political news sites.
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