WASHINGTON (AP) – President Barack Obama is casting Donald Trump’s positions on immigration, trade and Muslims as part of an ignorance-and-isolation philosophy that the president says will lead the U.S. down the path of decline.
Obama used his commencement speech Sunday at Rutgers University to tear into the presumptive GOP nominee, without ever mentioning his name. Repeatedly the president invoked specific Trump policies to denounce a rejection of facts, science and intellectualism that he said was pervading politics.
Obama says that in politics and life, ignorance isn’t a virtue. He says not knowing what you’re talking about is different than “keeping it real” or “telling it like it is.”
The president is invoking Trump’s calls to build a wall between the U.S. and Mexico. He says walls and drawbridges can’t solve America’s problems.