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Obama warns of Trump team's 'extremist views' [1]
['Daily Kos Staff']
Date: 2025-09-17
President Barack Obama attended the Jefferson Educational Society’s 17th Global Summit in Pennsylvania Wednesday, where he was asked about right-wing activist Charlie Kirk’s killing last week.
Addressing the Trump administration’s response to the murder of Kirk—who was known for promoting racist, transphobic, and misogynistic views—Obama pointed out the stark differences between the Trump administration and his own staff.
“I will say that those extreme views were not in my White House. I wasn't embracing them. I wasn't empowering them. I wasn't putting the weight of the United States government behind extremist views,” he said. “When we have the weight of the United States government behind extremist views, we've got a problem.”
Though Obama admitted that he didn’t know Kirk personally, he said that he’s “generally aware of some of his ideas.”
“I think those ideas were wrong, but that doesn't negate the fact that what happened was a tragedy and that I mourn for him and his family,” he said. “He's a young man with two small children and a wife who—and a huge number of friends and supporters—who cared about him, and so we have to extend grace to people during their period of mourning and shock.”
He continued to shed light on the nuance of the situation—that Kirk was a bad person, and also that he should not have been murdered.
“We can also, at the same time, say that I disagree with the idea that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was a mistake,” Obama continued. “That's not me politicizing the issue, it's making an observation about who are we as a country. I can say that I disagree with the suggestion that my wife or Justice [Ketanji Brown] Jackson does not have adequate brain processing power,” he said, referring to a comment made by Kirk in 2023.
Under attack from the authoritarian impulses of the right, Democratic lawmakers have been working to reintroduce rationality and common sense into public discourse around political violence and the line between rhetoric and policy.
At the same time, the right has not only sought to vilify all political dissent, while also whitewashing Kirk’s legacy to create a more palatable martyr for their political ambitions.
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https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/9/17/2344080/-Obama-warns-of-Trump-team-s-extremist-views?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=top_news_slot_6&pm_medium=web
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