President Obama gets serious about Donald Trump on ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live’

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfpKIQlKwKo

President Barack Obama was mostly smiles during his appearance on Monday night’s episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live!, reading mean tweets about himself and joking that in an imaginary world where there was no two-term limit on the presidency, the First Lady would divorce him if he decided to run for a third term.

But even though he admitted to Kimmel that he laughs “most of the time” when he sees Donald Trump on TV, he had some somber words about the Republican presidential candidate and the current presidential campaign.

“Part of the reason we’ve gotten involved as much as we have is not just because we think Hillary is going to be a great president,” Obama told Kimmel, “but because there is something qualitatively different about the way Trump has operated in the political sphere.”

Obama continued by saying that although he believed he was the best candidate for office when he ran against John McCain and Mitt Romney in 2008 and 2012, respectively, he wasn’t worried about the general course of the country if they had won. With Trump, he’s not so sure.

“What we haven’t seen before is somebody questioning the integrity of elections and the will of the people,” Obama said. “What we haven’t seen before is a politics based on putting down — in very explicit terms — Muslim-Americans who are patriots, or describing women not in terms of their intellect and their character but on a 1 to 10 score.”

Obama concluded the segment by saying that when he was elected in 2008, he made sure to be protective of many of the norms, standards, values, and customs that have made America so successful over the course of its history. When it comes to Trump, Obama said he sees a threat to those building blocks.

“If you are willing to say anything and do anything, even when it undermines everything that’s been built by previous generations, that’s a problem,” Obama said. “And that’s why I take this election very seriously.”