President Obama delivered a commencement address at Rutgers University on Sunday that steered clear of the typical graduation advice and sounded a lot like a tough, aggressive takedown of the Republican presidential front-runner. Building walls won’t change that, ‘ Trump said.
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After pausing amid another round of applause and laughs, the president added: “It’s not cool to not know what you’re talking about”.
“The biggest challenges we face can not be solved in isolation”, he said. “And yet we’ve become confused about this”.
‘It won’t boost our economy and it won’t enhance our security either – isolating or disparaging Muslims, suggesting they will be treated differently when it comes to entering this county, ‘ he said.
Obama also told the graduates that people who are placed in a position to make policy should value “facts, evidence, reason logic, and understanding of science”. He noted the dangers of keeping the USA isolated from the rest of the globe.
President Barack said, “The world is more interconnected than ever before, and it’s becoming more interconnected every day”.
“A wall won’t stop that”, Mr Obama said, bringing to mind Mr Trump’s call for a border wall between the United States and Mexico.
Referencing the changes that have taken place since the turn of the century – from terrorist attacks to the recession – Obama said that while change is often unsteady, it’s not subsiding in America.
Some 50,000 students and their families packed High Point Solution Stadium for the ceremony, the first at Rutgers to involve a sitting president. It was the second of three commencement speeches Obama will give this year, making it among of the last he’s expected to give in office.
With a bevy of academics and university officials seated behind him, Obama looked out at the soon-to-be graduates in their red gowns and black mortarboards and emphasized to them the need for knowledge and expertise on the national and world stage.
But he continued: ‘The system isn’t as rigged as you think and it certainly isn’t as hopeless as you think’.
Rutgers President Robert Barchi presents President Barack Obama with an honorary Doctor of Laws degree. As an example Obama said he disagreed with students who a few years earlier had objected to former secretary of state Condoleezza Rice’s invitation to speak at the university. The public university’s leaders lobbied the president for years to come to campus for the school’s 250th anniversary.
“Engage it. Debate it. Stand up for what you believe in”, Obama said.
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The president will also speak on June 2 at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
