And I think the most important thing for the public and the press is to just listen to what he says and follow up and ask questions about what appear to be either contradictory or uninformed or outright wacky ideas. Obama has endorsed Hillary Clinton and has said he plans to campaign full-force for the Democrat before the November 8 election.
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When the current president flatly states that the Republican nominee to be the next occupant of the Oval Office is not qualified, the American people should take notice.
Obama’s remarks came at the end of a grueling nine-day trip that took the him to Laos and China following USA stops in Nevada, Hawaii and Midway Atoll, a US -controlled coral reef in the Pacific Ocean.
Also, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte uttered an insult about Obama, prompting him to cancel their sit-down meeting.
Obama struck a wistful tone at the news conference, saying he realized this was his last trip to Asia as president and remembering the years he spent in Indonesia as a child.
“Every time he speaks that opinion is confirmed”, Obama said during a news conference at the tail end of his visit to Laos.
Modi is also scheduled to have meetings with South Korean President Park Geun-hye, Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, who is the State Counsellor and Foreign Minister of Myanmar, and US President Barack Obama later in the day.
The summit ended with Laos turning over the chairmanship of the 10-nation Association of Southeast Asian Nations to Duterte, whose country will host the annual diplomatic gathering next year.
At the top of the list of unfinished business is the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a 12-nation free trade deal Obama helped broker.
Obama rejected the notion that he’d been slighted while in Asia or that leaders in the region were rejecting his leadership – a criticism leveled by Trump.
The U.S. and Laos share a hard history defined by war ” ” “a history that we must both acknowledge and work together to heal in order to build a new relationship that will benefit future generations of Lao and Americans alike.
In a final news conference before departing Laos, he said that he was proud to be the first USA president to meet with the leaders of all 10 Association of Southeast Asian Nations countries, and that he hoped his successor would continue to make the region a priority.
“I don’t take these comments personally because it seems as if this is a phrase he’s used repeatedly including directed at the Pope and others”, adding that such choice words were “a habit, a way of speaking for him”.
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An global arbitration tribunal at the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague in July ruled in favour of the Philippines in its dispute with China over the South China Sea.
