Luke Skywalker
Super Moderator
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President Obama (Saul Loeb, AFP/Getty Images)
President Obama waded into the 2016 presidential campaign on Monday, denouncing<span style="color: Red;">*</span>Mike Huckabee for likening the Iran nuclear deal to the Holocaust and saying his comments reflect an all-too-common Republican pattern.
“Maybe this is just an effort to push Mr. Trump out of the headlines but it’s not the kind of leadership that is needed for America right now,”<span style="color: Red;">*</span>Obama said during a news conference in Ethiopia, referring to businessman and GOP front-runner Donald Trump.
Obama spoke a day after Huckabee — a 2016 Republican presidential candidate — said that Obama is “naive” to trust Iran on the nuclear deal, and, in doing so, “he will take the Israelis and march them to the door of the oven.”
The president responded to a question about Huckabee’s statement by saying it is<span style="color: Red;">*</span>“part of just a general pattern” among Republicans and<span style="color: Red;">*</span>“would be considered ridiculous if it weren’t so sad.”
Huckabee stood by his comments, citing Iran’s repeated threats to “destroy” and “annihilate” the state of Israel.
“What’s ‘ridiculous and sad’ is that @POTUS does not take Iran’s repeated threats seriously,” Huckabee said on Twitter. In another missive, he said:<span style="color: Red;">*</span><span style="color: Red;">*</span>“I will stand with our ally Israel to prevent the terrorists in Tehran from achieving their own stated goal of another Holocaust.”
A Republican senator has compared Secretary of State John Kerry — a prime negotiator of the Iran deal — to Pontius Pilate, Obama pointed out, while he has been likened to a state sponsor of terrorism.
“There are going to be disagreements,” Obama said, “but we just don’t fling out ad hominem attacks like that because it doesn’t help inform the American people.”
Obama and other supporters said the nuclear agreement<span style="color: Red;">*</span>closes Iran’s pathways to nuclear weapons, thereby avoiding the prospect of military action.
Congressional Republicans and Israeli government officials said the agreement — in which the U.S. and allies end sanctions on Iran as it gives up the means to make nuclear weapons — will actually smooth Iran’s path to nuclear weapons.
In answering the question about Huckabee, Obama also touched on Trump and the aggressive campaign he is waging, including critical comments about<span style="color: Red;">*</span>former Vietnam prisoner of war Sen. John McCain, among others.
“That arises out of a culture where, you know, those kinds of outrageous attacks have become far too commonplace and get circulated nonstop through the Internet and talk radio and news outlets,” Obama said. “And I recognize when outrageous statements like that are made about me that a lot of the same people who are outraged when they’re made about Mr. McCain were pretty quiet.”
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