President Obama likes to say he has run his last race, but he is increasingly campaigning against Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump while Hillary Clinton and Bernard Sanders wage their protracted battle for the Democratic nomination.
Mr. Obama is so eager to put his thumb on the scale in the race for the White House that he “trumped” his own message this week. The president made an appearance in the White House press room Tuesday to promote his administration’s crackdown on corporate tax loopholes, but his announcement was quickly overshadowed when, in response to a reporter’s question, he launched into an attack about Mr. Trump’s “wacky” and “half-baked” foreign policy proposals.
Democratic allies of the White House say Mr. Trump is forcing the president’s hand, as a front-runner shaking up established foreign policy by questioning the value of NATO and raising doubts about the U.S. commitment to providing nuclear deterrence for South Korea and Japan.
“Obama, as president of the United States, has no other choice than to take on Trump,” said Jim Manley, a Democratic strategist with ties to the White House. “His rhetoric, especially when it comes to foreign policy issues such as U.S. support for NATO, is downright dangerous, not only for this county but for the world as well. The idea that he would do away with the nuclear weapons umbrella underpinning our support for Japan or South Korea is absolutely nuts and has virtually no support within the foreign policy community, either on the left or right.”
Republican Party strategist John Feehery said Mr. Obama criticized Mr. Trump’s proposal to force Mexico to pay for a wall on the U.S. border because “his political base expects him to weigh in.”
“It’s pretty easy pickings for him,” Mr. Feehery said of the president. “The Trump plan is so unworkable and so stupid, how could [Mr. Obama] not offer an opinion? And he has to respond because the Mexican government is expecting him to respond.”
Asked about Mr. Trump’s proposal to bar undocumented immigrants from sending money back to relatives in Mexico, the president called it impractical.
“The notion that we’re going to track every Western Union bit of money that’s being sent to Mexico — good luck with that,” Mr. Obama said. “Then we’ve got the issue of the implications for the Mexican economy, which, in turn, if it’s collapsing, actually sends more immigrants north because they can’t find jobs back in Mexico. This is just one more example of something that is not thought through and is primarily put forward for political consumption.”
Within hours, the Democratic National Committee released a video of the president’s comments, saying they illustrated how Mr. Trump “simply doesn’t have the temperament necessary to be commander in chief.”
While Mr. Obama says he believes Mr. Trump won’t win the election, the president’s involvement in the campaign has increased noticeably since the days when he would occasionally bristle at the Republican’s campaign slogan, “Make America Great Again.” As winter has turned to spring and Mr. Trump has built a large lead in delegates, the president has criticized him weekly and warned that U.S. allies are getting nervous.
It’s a far more active role for an incumbent president than Republican George W. Bush exerted in the 2008 Democratic primary, when Mr. Obama was seeking the nomination against Mrs. Clinton.
“At least in 2008 they were debating roughly the same issues,” said Mr. Manley.
He said Mr. Trump’s foreign policy proposals have taken the race to a different level of concern.
White House press secretary Josh Earnest said Wednesday that the president is not getting “antsy” about the undecided Democratic race. He said Mr. Obama will take an even more active role in the general election.
“The president has got plenty on his plate right now,” Mr. Earnest said. “But the time will come when the president will have the opportunity to make a forceful public case about who he believes should succeed him in the Oval Office. And when that time comes, I’m confident that the president will join that debate with a lot of zest.”
Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Sanders have attacked Mr. Trump, but they are more focused on their own primary contest, in which Mr. Sanders picked up some momentum Tuesday by winning Wisconsin. The president hasn’t endorsed a candidate in the Democratic primary, although he is said to be rooting for Mrs. Clinton, his former secretary of state.
Mr. Feehery, the Republican strategist, said he believes Democrats would prefer to run against conservative Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas than Mr. Trump in November.
“Cruz is pretty predictable,” he said. “Trump? Not so much.”
Regardless of whether the Republican nominee is Mr. Trump or Mr. Cruz, the president is concerned about his efforts in the White House being rolled back, Mr. Earnest said.
“President Obama feels strongly about making an argument against that, in part because he loves his country and he wants to ensure America succeeds,” he said. “That’s the most important thing. He obviously feels a little bit of a personal investment. He obviously has dedicated the last eight years of his life to focusing on these policies that have led us to make so much progress. And he doesn’t want to see so much of that work be undone.”
• Dave Boyer can be reached at dboyer@washingtontimes.com.
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