President Obama On GOP Candidates: ‘Can’t Handle A Bunch Of CNBC Moderators’ [Video]
U.S. President Barack Obama spoke on Monday evening at the Richard Rodgers Theatre, located on Broadway in New York City, during a Democratic Party fundraiser that featured the musical Hamilton.
President Obama started off by stating, while waving his arms around somewhat groove-ily to make a seeming point, that the Republican candidates seem to “occupy a different reality.”
“According to them, everything was really good in 2008, when we were going through the worst economic crisis in our lifetimes,” Obama stated. “This, apparently, was the golden age that I messed up.” The audience burst into applause and laughter as Obama repeated, “I messed it up.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eiYP66qGMvc
Obama spoke about how the Republican candidates seem to think that his health care plan, foreigners, tax hikes, and budget shortfalls have “messed” the country up.
On climate change, Obama made the analogy about going to see a doctor. Then he stopped himself, obviously for effect, and changes the proposition to going to see “a hundred doctors” and all but one states that you’re afflicted with diabetes.
“You’ve got to stop eating bacon and donuts every day,” Obama joked to giggles from the audience.
“All 99 of those doctors got together, with Obama,” the President carried on, while those gathered laughed with genuine amusement and widespread applause.
President Obama then described what he sees as a seeming consensus among GOP candidates that he is “weak” and that in his dealings with Russian President Vladimir Putin he is getting “sand kicked in his face.”
“Then, it turns out, they can’t even handle a bunch of CNBC moderators,” President Obama stated with a glowing smile to a round of applause. President Obama spoke about how, if the Republicans can’t handle the CNBC moderators, then he doesn’t think “the Chinese and the Russians are going to be too worried about you.”
At the Republican debate, hosted by CNBC, Senator Ted Cruz from Texas stated that the U.S. people do not “trust” the media in the United States and that the questions that were asked of the candidates illustrated this, to applause from the Boulder, Colorado audience.
Cruz cited Donald Trump being asked if he was a “comic book villain,” a moderator insinuating that Ben Carson can’t do math, it being suggested that Marco Rubio should resign, and why Jeb Bush’s numbers have fallen as examples of these untrustworthy sorts of questions.
Senator Cruz then suggested that moderators ask questions about the “substantive issues that people care about,” to hoots and applause from the audience.
The Republican senator then described CNN‘s handling of the Democratic candidates as fawning and concerned with who is more “handsome and wise.”
Carl Quintanilla then reiterated the question posed to Cruz, which he had not addressed, regarding the debt limit, which might seem to be quite mundane when compared with the questions Cruz listed the other Republican candidates as being asked.
Cruz then stated that the Republican candidates are more qualified than the Democratic candidates and that it was obvious that none of the moderators are going to be voting in a Republican primary. Cruz described a belief that questions asked of candidates at the CNBC Republican debate were designed to encourage candidates to rip each other apart instead of dealing with the substantive issues facing the country.
[Feature Photo by Andrew Burton/Getty Images]
