CHICAGO—Barack Obama refused to answer directly when asked whether he could beat Donald Trump in a head-to-head race, but he said on Tuesday that he believes his vision of America is already more in touch with most Americans, and will win out in the end.
However, the man who burst onto the national political scene with his 2004 Democratic National Convention speech declaring that there’s no red or blue America agreed with his old political consultant David Axelrod that America is redder and bluer than ever.
But it doesn’t have to be this way, Obama said in a live interview for Axelrod’s Axe Files podcast, recorded at the University of Chicago. It’s just that he and President Trump “have contrasting visions of what America is, and that’s self-apparent.”
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“What’s unique about America is our aspirations to be a large, successful, multiracial, multicultural, multiethnic, multireligious pluralistic democracy,” Obama said. When Axelrod asked whether Obama felt that Trump shared that opinion, the former president said, “Obviously not.”
But Obama said he believes that his vision will ultimately win out over Trump’s.
“As divided as we appear right now,” Obama said, “the truth of the matter is that the majority of Americans think that people should be judged on the basis of their character, not their color or their gender. The majority of Americans believe that we are better off where our daughters have the same chances as our sons to succeed and do well, and where we should consistently do our best to make sure every child has equal opportunity in this society.”