Obama Doesn't Take It Personally

More

President Obama can't go anywhere these days without getting asked why people on the right are so passionately against him. He's made himself available to the media for two television interviews in the past week, and, in both, he got asked what he makes of the riled-up conservatives who strongly--very strongly--oppose his agenda, and on a regular basis call him a "socialist."

Obama's response: shrug it off. Place it in historical context. It's not personal; I'm not a socialist; look, the economy is bad, and people are anxious about.

That's how he responded to questions about tea partiers and birtherism in an NBC interview with Matt Lauer that aired on Monday, telling the interviewer, "There are some folks who just weren't sure whether I was born in the United States, whether I was a socialist, right, so there's that segment of it, which I think is just dug in ideologically, and that strain has existed in American politics for a long time."

And again, today, to CBS's Harry Smith, who asked the president what he made of getting called a "socialist" and a "Nazi."

"It's troublesome, but keep in mind that there have been periods in American history where this kind of vitriol comes out. It happens often when you've got an economy that is making people more anxious and people are feeling as if there's a lot of change that needs to take place, but that's not the vast majority of Americans. The truth is, some of these comments, when you actually ask, "Well, this is based on what?" This notion that Obama's a socialist, for example. Nobody can really give you a good answer," Obama said.

Video below:


Watch CBS News Videos Online
Jump to comments

Chris Good is a political reporter for ABC News. He was previously an associate editor at The Atlantic and a reporter for The Hill.

Get Today's Top Stories in Your Inbox (preview)


Elsewhere on the web

Join the Discussion

After you comment, click Post. If you’re not already logged in you will be asked to log in or register. blog comments powered by Disqus

Video

Miami: The Next Big Start-Up City?

How the city became a center for innovation

Video

Video

A Brief History of Romantic Comedies

From The Atlantic's Chris Orr

Video

Life in 'the New Arctic'

A moving portrait of a fading landscape

Video

Video

The Rise of New York City

A fascinating look at Manhattan in the 1940s

Video

What Is Methane Hydrate?

"Flaming ice" is a vast natural energy source

Video

NASA's Time-Lapse of the Sun

Now with epic dubstep music

Video

Shaken Not Tuned: Cocktail Experiments

Can a tuning fork improve a cocktail?

Video

Video

Is He Cheating? A 1950s Guide

'That little blonde secretary from the office?’

Video

New Yorkers: Vintage Vacuum-Tube Amps

Risking electric shock to restore old amplifiers

Video

The DIY Piano-Bicycle

Everybody needs a hobby

Video

What Does It Take to Make Real Craft Gin?

Tour the Green Hat Gin distillery

Video

Letter From the Editor

The June 2013 issue

Video

What Straights Can Learn From Same-Sex Couples

New insight from decades of research

Video

The End of the Mall Rat

A tribute to that pillar of teen culture

Writers

Up
Down

More in Politics

In Focus

Picking up the Pieces After the Tornado in Moore, Oklahoma

Just In