Barack Obama believes Donald Trump’s ongoing legal troubles aren’t a good look for America, but the 44th president said he’s more worried about ongoing attacks on democratic institutions.
Obama’s comments came during an interview with CNN’s Chief International Anchor Christiane Amanpour scheduled to air on Thursday night, a portion of which the cable news channel posted on its website.
“Existing democratic institutions are creaky and we're gonna have to reform them,” Obama said.
Obama’s statement about Trump’s indictments came in response to a question from Amanpour about how the rest of world is reacting to “the spectacle of a former president being federally indicted.”
“How is the rest of the world, the democratic world, maybe even the non-democratic world, meant to interpret that indictment, and indeed the fact that a federal indictee is running, and is able to run for the highest office in the land, maybe even the world,” Amanpour asked.
“It’s less than ideal,” Obama replied, “but the fact that we have a former president who is having to answer to charges brought by prosecutors does uphold the basic notion that nobody's above the law. And the allegations will now be sorted out through a court process.
“And I think I'm more concerned when it comes to the United States with the fact that not just one particular individual is being accused of undermining existing laws, but that more broadly we've seen, whether it's through the gerrymandering of our districts, whether it's trying to silence critics through changes in the legislative process attempts to intimidate the press, a strand of anti-democratic sentiment that we've seen in the United States.
Obama singled out Republicans but suggested no single party or political ideology has a monopoly on anti-democratic impulses.
“It's something that is right now, most prominent in the Republican Party, but I don't think it's something that is unique to one party. I think there is a little less tolerance for ideas that don't suit us, and it's sort of the habits of a free and open exchange of ideas and the idea that we all agree to the rules of the game and even if the outcomes aren't always the ones we'd like, we still abide by those rules.
“I think that's a weakened since I left office and we're going to need to strengthen them again.”
