Featured Image Credit: YouTube/Barack Obama
Topics: Barack Obama, Charlie Kirk, Donald Trump, US News, Politics
Callum Jones
Topics: Barack Obama, Charlie Kirk, Donald Trump, US News, Politics
Barack Obama appears to have taken a swipe at Donald Trump following the assassination of Charlie Kirk.
Kirk was killed while speaking at an event organized by his company, Turning Point USA, at Utah Valley University on September 10.
Suspect Tyler Robinson, 22, has since been charged with several offences, including aggravated murder and obstruction of justice.
Obama, the 44th POTUS, was speaking at an event in Pennsylvania on Tuesday evening (September 16), where he admitted the US faces a 'political crisis' after the assassination of Kirk.
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According to a transcript released via CNN, Obama added: "Look, obviously I didn’t know Charlie Kirk. I was 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 continued: "He’s a young man with two small children and a wife who obviously - 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."
Obama then seemingly criticized Trump's handling of the situation, referring to how he navigated the Dylann Roof incident.
The 31-year-old is on death row after killing nine people in a mass shooting at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, in 2015.
The former president said: "When I was president in the aftermath of tragedies, when Dylann Roof went into a black church and, based on his own words, shot a group of folks who were engaged in Bible study and who had invited him in.
"And according to him, it was for racist reasons. As president of the United States, my response was not ‘who may have influenced this troubled young man to engage in that kind of violence and now let me go after my political opponents and use that’."
Obama continued: "And so when I hear not just our current president, but his aides, 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 something that we're going to have to grapple with, all of us.
"Whether we're Democrats, Republicans, Independents, we have to recognize that on both sides, there are people who are extremists and who say things that are contrary to what I believe are America's core values."
He went on to say that those 'extreme views' were 'not in my White House'.
The White House has dismissed the comments made by the former president, telling the BBC in a statement: "Obama used every opportunity to sow division and pit Americans against each other.
"His division has inspired generations of Democrats to slander their opponents as ‘deplorables,’ or ‘fascists,’ or ‘Nazis’."
UNILAD has contacted the White House for further comment.