Transcription
I got to show you this. Former President Barack Obama officially addressed the Charlie Kirk situation at an event in Pennsylvania today. Now, he of course says that political violence is never ever okay. But President Obama also engages in the type of nonsitization that I have been liking. He calls out the fact that Charlie Kirk said bad things about his wife, awful things about MLK Jr. and the Civil Rights Movement, saying the Civil Rights Act should not have been passed. Obama says, "Listen, I can acknowledge that he said these terrible things and acknowledge that he didn't deserve to die." So, he really threads the needle as he always does. And there are multiple clips that I would like to play for you. Let's waste no time. Here's clip number one of President Obama in Pennsylvania.
>> Look, I I you obviously I I didn't know Charlie Kirk. I was generally aware of of of some of his ideas. I think those ideas were wrong. But that does but that doesn't negate the fact that what happened was a tragedy and that I mourn for him and his family. He's a young man with two small children and a wife who obviously and 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. We can also at the same time say that um I disagree with the idea that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was a mistake. That's not that's not me politicizing the issue. It's it's it's 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 Jackson does not have adequate brain processing power. I can I can I can say that I uh disagree that Martin Luther King was awful. I can disagree with some of the broader uh suggestions of uh that liberals and Democrats are promoting uh a conspiracy to displace whites and replace them um by ushering in illegal immigrants. Those are all topics that we have to be able to discuss, honestly, uh, and forthrightly. While we still insist that in that process of debate, uh, we respect other people's right to say things that we profoundly disagree with. That's that's how we should approach this. Now, the the last >>
Okay, there's another clip where the president addresses political violence in a head-on way, and we'll play that, but I just want to digest what he said in that previous clip because President Obama is actually referring directly to a Charlie Kirk clip that he must have seen. In this Charlie Kirk clip, Charlie says something gross about Joy Reid, a black woman, about Michelle Obama, another black woman, about the new Supreme Court justice, the newest uh Kanji Brown Jackson, and says >>
Joy Reid and Michelle Obama and Sheila Jackson Lee and Katangi Brown Jackson were affirmative action picks. We would have been called the racist. But now they're coming out and they're saying it for us. They're coming out and they're saying, "I'm only here because affirmative action." Yeah, we know. You do not have the brain processing power to otherwise be taken really seriously. You had to go steal a white person's slot to go be taken somewhat seriously. Play cut 52. That was just said with a lot of vitrial. Like, there is a rumor that Charlie Kirk had one of his college slots stolen when he was 17 years old by a black woman. that this is a rumor that's floating around and that that is why he was bitter and why he didn't go to college, why he went this path of saying these insane things. But he's pretty directly targeting four people there, four black women. Michelle Obama, he says Joy Reid, he says Sheila Jackson Lee, and the Supreme Court Justice Kanagi Brown Jackson. Like it's a very clear narrative he's trying to draw there. So I think President Obama is very fair in pointing that out on stage, especially as the first black president so far in American history. the only black president that we've had, which kind of proves the broader point that white privilege is still alive and well. But either way, it's so fair for President Obama to be like, "Yeah, I'm not a fair I'm not a fan of this cultural figure who was trying to say the Civil Rights Act was a mistake, that my wife doesn't have quote unquote brain processing power." It's very fair for Obama to just say, "I denounce all of that." And political violence. Let's watch this second clip of him talking about political violence.
And so, and so when I hear uh not just our current president, but his aids, who have a history of calling political opponents vermin, enemies who need to be targeted. That speaks to a broader problem that we have right now and and something that we're going to have to grapple with. all of us, whether we're Democrats, Republicans, independents, u we we have to recognize that on both sides, undoubtedly there are people who are extremists and who say things that are contrary to what I believe are America's core values. But I will say that those extreme views were not in my White House. I wasn't embracing them.
President Obama is making a key distinction here. And I can already see the the mad comments. People are going to say, "Why is Obama saying both sides?" He's not. He's making a broader point here. He's saying the right is the one embracing it in a top- down way from the White House, but there is extremism that exists online floating around where people on both sides will say crazy things, but then he draws the distinction. It's coming top down from the White House.
>> I wasn't empowering them. I wasn't putting the weight of the United States government behind extremist views. And that is when when we when we have the weight of the United States government behind extremist views, we've got a problem. And and so the in your original question is, are we at an inflection point? We're we're at an inflection point in the sense that we we always have to fight for our democracy and we have to fight for those values that have made this country the envy of the world and and I often say democracy is not self-executing. It depends on us as citizens regardless of our political affiliations to stand up for certain core values uh because otherwise u we may not have them.
>> Wow, a lot there to unpack.
>> Very well said. You know, I'm glad throughout this video I got to play President Obama's words that served as a narrative disruptor for the right. I keep using this term narrative disruptor. We made like four or five videos where I hop on and I go, "Listen, right-wingers are sanitizing the hell out of Charlie Kirk. I want to play a few clips that just kind of break up this narrative that they've been pushing relentlessly. And President Obama did it for me. I didn't even know that was going to happen." So, thank you all for watching. Love you all and peace out.