Barack Obama on Trump on Donald Trump

“We've got a debate inside the other party that is fantasy and schoolyard taunts and selling stuff like it's the Home Shopping Network. And then you've got the Republican establishment -- they're very exercised: We're shocked that somebody would be saying these things. We're shocked that somebody is fanning anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-Muslim sentiment. We're shocked! We're shocked that somebody could be loose with the facts. Or distort someone's record -- shocked... This is the guy, remember, who was sure that I was born in Kenya. Who just wouldn't let it go. And all this same Republican establishment, they weren't saying nothing. As long as it was directed at me, they were fine with it. They thought it was a hoot. Wanted to get his endorsement... What is happening in this primary is just a distillation of what's been happening inside their party for more than a decade. I mean, the reason that many of their voters are responding is because this is what's been fed through the messages they've been sending for a long time -- that you just make flat assertions that don't comport with the facts. That you just deny the evidence of science. That compromise is a betrayal. That the other side isn't simply wrong, or we just disagree, we want to take a different approach, but the other side is destroying the country, or treasonous. I mean, that's - look it up. That's what they've been saying. So they can't be surprised when somebody suddenly looks and says, you know what, I can do that even better. I can make stuff up better than that. I can be more outrageous than that. I can insult people even better than that. I can be even more uncivil.”

“I did hope, for the sake of our country, that Donald Trump might show some interest in taking the job seriously … But he never did. For close to four years now, he’s shown no interest in putting in the work; no interest in finding common ground; no interest in using the awesome power of his office to help anyone but himself and his friends; no interest in treating the presidency as anything but one more reality show that he can use to get the attention he craves. … Trump hasn’t grown into the job because he can’t.”