President Obama On Fox News: “Republicans Have Their Own TV Station”
During a much-anticipated interview, President Obama appeared on Fox News Sunday for the first time in his presidency to discuss the Supreme Court battle, his legacy and the state of the current race for the White House. At one point in the conversation, Obama told host Chris Wallace that one of the reasons you have voters who describe themselves as angry is due to Fox News and conservative radio, among other things.
Following up a portion of the interview where Wallace pressed POTUS on Hillary Clinton’s emails because of course, the Fox anchor moved onto the election and the reaction from voters. Wallace noted that supporters of both Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders describe themselves as “angry” at Washington, and he wanted to know if Obama felt somewhat responsible.
POTUS didn’t take the bait, instead pointing out that he was just as frustrated as those voters. He also pointed out that much of that frustration is a feeling that we never really got a resolution to the financial meltdown in 2007-08 that caused millions of job losses and the loss of life savings. While job growth has been solid over the past few years and much has been done to fix the damage caused during that period, there is still unease and anger over the feeling that it could happen again, and those responsible have not really faced any repercussions.
Wallace wanted to know why Obama wasn’t able to fix this during his tenure and provide more optimism to those voters. POTUS provided the perfect response:
“The perception is going to be changing over time as people see results. But, and this is the big but, nobody is going to be 100 percent satisfied in a democracy like ours with every outcome.
And I think the danger both among Republicans and among Democrats who just listen to each other or they just listen to people that already agree with them. You know, Republicans have their own TV station.”
With a smirk, Wallace said, “Go ahead, you can say Fox News.”
Obama concluded by stating that Republicans have their own blogs and publications, as do liberals, and that causes echo chambers where nobody is listening to the other side. It also leads to more anger because conservative media will promise outcomes that are unachievable, like the repeal of Obamacare, and that when these things don’t come to fruition, people lose their shit.
We then got some more hopey changey stuff through the interview, just to tweak the Fox audience.
Below is video of the segment, courtesy of Raw Story:
