President Barack Obama said in an interview aired on Monday that Republican front-runner Donald Trump is "exploiting" the frustrations of working-class men to fuel his campaign. In an interview with NPR's Steve Inskeep, Obama suggested that a changing economy and shifting demographics combined with national economic stress in the country have prompted fear in some parts of the population, particularly "blue-collar men."
"I do think that when you combine that demographic change with all the economic stresses that people have been going through - because of the financial crisis, because of technology, because of globalization, the fact that wages and incomes have been flat-lining for some time, and that particularly blue-collar men have had a lot of trouble in this new economy, where they are no longer getting the same bargain that they got when they were going to a factory and able to support their families on a single paycheck - you combine those things, and it means that there is going to be potential anger, frustration, fear," Obama told NPR.
"Some of it justified, but just misdirected," said Obama, according to NBC News. "I think somebody like Mr. Trump is taking advantage of that. That's what he's exploiting during the course of his campaign."
He also noted in his interview with NPR's Steve Inskeep that although he accepts true policy disagreements exist, much of the anger directed at him is due to him being the first African-American president.
"If you are referring to specific strains in the Republican Party that suggest that somehow I’m different, I’m Muslim, I’m disloyal to the country, etc. - which unfortunately is pretty far out there, and gets some traction in certain pockets of the Republican Party, and that have been articulated by some of their elected officials - what I’d say there is that that’s probably pretty specific to me, and who I am and my background," Obama told Inskeep, according to The New York Times, adding, "In some ways, I may represent change that worries them."
In 2011, Trump began a public campaign questioning whether or not President Obama was, in fact, born in the United States, saying, "I have some real doubts," according to the Today Show.
