Presumptive GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump fired back Thursday at President Obama’s criticism that Mr. Trump has “rattled” world leaders, saying that’s actually a good thing and that the president has allowed foreign countries to take advantage of him.
“When you rattle someone, that’s good,” Mr. Trump told reporters in North Dakota. “As you know, many of the countries in our world … have been absolutely abusing us and [taking] advantage of us.
“We’re going to have great relationships with these countries, but if they’re rattled in a friendly way, that’s a good thing … not a bad thing,” he said.
Speaking to reporters on Thursday at a summit in Japan, Mr. Obama had also said that a lot of Mr. Trump’s proposals “display either ignorance of world affairs or a cavalier attitude or an interest in getting tweets and headlines instead of actually thinking through what it is that is required to keep America safe and secure and prosperous and what’s required to keep the world on an even keel.”
Mr. Trump said Mr. Obama is a president who’s done a “horrible job.”
“He’s a president who’s allowed many of these countries to totally take advantage of him, and us, unfortunately, and he’s got to say something,” Mr. Trump said.
“And it’s unusual that every time he has a press conference, he’s talking about me,” he said. “So you know, it’s just one of those things.
“But I will say this: he is a man who shouldn’t be really airing his difficulties, and he shouldn’t be airing what he’s airing where he is right now, and I think that you’re going to see it stop pretty soon,” Mr. Trump said.
Mr. Trump spoke after The Associated Press earlier in the day had put him across the threshold of the 1,237 GOP delegates needed to clinch the party’s presidential nomination.
• Dave Boyer contributed to this report.
• David Sherfinski can be reached at dsherfinski@washingtontimes.com.
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