Obama was asked about Huckabee while traveling in Africa on Monday.
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We have robust debates, we look at the facts, Obama said during a news conference in Ethiopia.
A quote attributed to Nasrallah read: “If they [Jews] all gather in Israel, it will save us the trouble of going after them worldwide”.
The comments were a clear departure from what has seemed like unofficial White House policy in recent weeks, as top Obama aides have responded only sporadically to remarks made by Republican contenders.
“What’s “ridiculous and sad” is that President Obama does not take Iran’s repeated threats seriously”. He alluded to another Republican senator – Texas’ Ted Cruz, who went unnamed – who has said that the president and Kerry would become “the leading global financiers of radical Islamic terrorism”.
“To hear Mr. Huckabee invoke the Holocaust when America is Israel’s greatest ally and when Israel is a strong nation capable of defending itself is disheartening”, said Jonathan Greenblatt, national director of the latter group.
“There is a reason why 99 percent of the world thinks it’s a good deal – it’s because it’s a good deal“, Obama said during a joint press conference with Ethiopian prime minister Hailemariam Desalegn in the capital Addis Ababa.
Obama’s unprompted analysis of Trump’s effect on the Republican field marks a shift for the president.
Obama suggested the tough rhetoric was a ploy by Huckabee to “get attention” or to push Trump out of the headlines.
“Comments like these are offensive and they have no place in out political dialogue”, Clinton said.
Obama’s favorable comparison was especially striking in the reaction of the Republican presidential candidates to the nuclear agreement he and world leaders have reached with Iran. John McCain’s capture by the North Vietnamese during the Vietnam War, that McCain is not a war hero and that “I like people who weren’t captured”.
A video released by his campaign Monday afternoon plays clips of Clinton and the president reacting to the deal.
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“One can disagree with the particular statement to put a lid on the nuclear weapons program of Iran, that is fair game”, Clinton said. And there exist secret side deals to the agreement that Congress and the American people will never be able to review. But the president said he is genuinely anxious by the way insults have been normalized in political debate.
