Obama Accuses Trump of Exploiting Working-Class Fears

By JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS

President Obama said in a radio interview airing on Monday that Donald J. Trump, a leading contender for the Republican presidential nomination, is exploiting the resentment and anxieties of working-class men to boost his campaign. Mr. Obama also argued that some of the scorn directed at him personally stems from the fact that he is the first African-American to hold the White House.

Demographic changes and economic stresses, including “flatlining” wages and incomes, have meant 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,” Mr. Obama said in the interview with National Public Radio.

You combine those things, and it means that there is going to be potential anger, frustration, fear — some of it justified, but just misdirected,” the president added. “I think somebody like Mr. Trump is taking advantage of that. That’s what he’s exploiting during the course of his campaign.”

The comments were Mr. Obama’s most pointed response to Mr. Trump since the Republican candidate suggested that Muslims be barred from entering the United States after the mass shooting in San Bernardino, Calif. The attack was carried out by a couple who apparently were radicalized Muslims, one of whom had entered the United States on a fiancée visa.

In the wide-ranging interview, conducted the day before he left Washington on Friday for a two-week holiday vacation with his family in Hawaii, Mr. Obama defended his approach to taking on the Islamic State. He dismissed the notion that the militant group is an existential threat to the United States even as he conceded that he had received “legitimate criticism” for failing to adequately explain his strategy for confronting it. He also described his view of the anxiety on which Mr. Trump has capitalized, arguing that some voters who voice fears about his presidency and doubts about where Mr. Obama’s loyalties lie are reacting to the fact that he is the first black 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,” Mr. Obama told Steve Inskeep, the host of “Morning Edition” on NPR. “In some ways, I may represent change that worries them.”

“That’s not to suggest that everybody who objects to my policies may not have perfectly good reasons for it,” the president added. He noted, as an example, that voters living in coal-dependent areas may blame him for the loss of their jobs.

Mr. Obama has struggled to appeal to white voters who do not have a college education, carrying only 36 percent of them when he was re-elected in 2012. Republicans perform particularly well among that group, although it represents a shrinking share of the electorate.

On the Islamic State, which is also called ISIS or ISIL, Mr. Obama pushed back against criticism of his approach and said he was “confident that we are going to prevail.” “This is a serious challenge — ISIS is a virulent, nasty organization that has gained a foothold in ungoverned spaces effectively in Syria and parts of western Iraq,” Mr. Obama said, referring to attacks the group organized in Paris and apparently inspired in San Bernardino. “But it is also important for us to keep things in perspective, and this is not an organization that can destroy the United States.” He also suggested that heavy coverage of the media-savvy extremist group by news outlets chasing viewership had contributed to the public anxiety that has dragged down his approval ratings on the issue. “If you’ve been watching television for the last month, all you have been seeing, all you have been hearing about is these guys with masks or black flags who are potentially coming to get you,” Mr. Obama said. “And so I understand why people are concerned about it.” Asked whether news organizations had been manipulated by the Islamic State, he added: “Look, the media is pursuing ratings. This is a legitimate news story.”

He rejected critiques from Republican presidential candidates who have suggested “carpet bombing” the group, as well as the suggestion by Hillary Clinton, his party’s leading presidential candidate, that the United States establish a “no-fly zone” over Syria. He argued that doing so would require substantial ground troops and would fail to damage the Islamic State, which does not have an air force.

Still, the president said his administration had not done enough to explain its strategy and promote its successes in carrying it out.

“There is a legitimate criticism of what I’ve been doing and our administration has been doing in the sense that we haven’t, you know, on a regular basis, I think, described all the work that we’ve been doing for more than a year now to defeat ISIL,” Mr. Obama said. On domestic matters, Mr. Obama said he was concerned that a recent uptick in campus protests around the country, in which students have shone a spotlight on racial misunderstandings, has in some cases shut down important debates.

“I think it’s a healthy thing for young people to be engaged, and to question authority,” Mr. Obama said. “I do think that there have been times on college campuses where I get concerned that the unwillingness to hear other points of view can be as unhealthy on the left as on the right.”

He cited as examples student protests last year of planned appearances by Christine Lagarde, the head of the International Monetary Fund, at Smith College, and Condoleezza Rice, the former secretary of state, at Rutgers University that led both women to withdraw.

“Feel free to disagree with somebody,” the president said, “but don’t try to just shut them up.”