President Obama acknowledged today the controversy roiling Donald Trump‘s campaign, hitting the businessman during a Chicago fundraiser for bringing “disturbing…unbelievable rhetoric” into this year’s presidential election.
“I don’t need to repeat it. There are children in the room,” Obama said. “But demeaning women, degrading women, but also minorities, immigrants, people of other faiths, mocking the disabled, insulting our troops, insulting our veterans. That tells you a couple things.”
Trump has been under fire from Democrats and Republicans alike over a leaked 2005 video in which he brags about using his celebrity power to make sexual advances and grope women.
“It tells you that he’s insecure enough that he pumps himself up by putting other people down, not a character trait that I would advise for somebody in the Oval Office,” Obama said. “It tells you that he doesn’t care much about the basic values we try to impart to our kids. It tells you he’d be careless [with] the stability and the respect that a real vibrant democracy requires.”
Obama is set to arrive back in Washington, D.C., later this evening just in time to tune into the second presidential debate.