National Post (National Edition)
‘We are going to be OK’: Obama
WASHINGTON • “We’re going to be OK.”
In the final minutes of his final presidential news conference, Barack Obama insisted he’s not just tossing out reassuring platitudes about the nation’s future.
“This is not just a matter of no-drama Obama,” he said. “It is true that behind closed doors I curse more than I do publicly. And sometimes I get mad and frustrated like everybody else does. But at my core, I think we’re going to be OK.”
It is what he chose as the parting message for what is most likely his last extended remarks as president.
Processing the November election results in an intensely personal frame, Obama spoke at length about how his daughters, Sasha and Malia, felt about Donald Trump’s election.
“They don’t mope,” he said.
He said they were disappointed, but also resilient.
“We’ve tried to teach them hope,” Obama said. “The only thing that is the end of the world, is the end of the world.”
Yes, democracy is messy, he said, but there are more good people than bad and things will turn out just fine.
“We just have to fight for it. We have to work for it and we have to not take it for granted.”
Earlier, Obama firmly defended his decision to cut nearly three decades off convicted leaker Chelsea Manning’s prison term, arguing that the former Army intelligence analyst had served a “tough prison sentence” already.
Obama said he granted clemency to Manning because she had gone to trial, taken responsibility for her crime and received a sentence that was harsher than other leakers had received. He emphasized that he had merely commuted her sentence, not granted a pardon, which would have symbolically forgiven her for the crime.
“I feel very comfortable that justice has been served,” Obama said.
Manning was convicted in 2013 of violating the Espionage Act and other crimes for leaking more than 700,000 classified documents while working as an intelligence analyst in Baghdad. Formerly known as Bradley Manning, she declared as transgender after being sentenced to 35 years in prison. She had served more than six years before Obama commuted her sentence on Tuesday, with a release date set for May.
Obama also warned that the “moment may be passing” for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, pushing back on criticism over his recent move to put pressure on the Jewish state over settlement-building.
He stood behind his decision to allow a UN Security Council resolution to pass criticizing Israel over the settlements, though he conceded Trump might pursue a different approach.
“If you do not have two states, then in some form or fashion you are extending an occupation,” Obama said.
Reflecting on his legacy as the first black president, Obama disputed the notion that race relations had worsened. And he dismissed as “fake news” the idea that there is widespread voter fraud in the U.S.
He defended his administration’s rapprochement with Cuba and his eleventh-hour move to end the “wet foot, dry foot” policy that lets any Cuban who makes it to U.S. soil stay and become a legal resident. Ending the visa-free path was the latest development in a warming of relations that has included the easing of the U.S. economic embargo and the restoration of commercial flights between the countries.
After leaving office, Obama plans to write a book, raise money to develop his presidential library, and work on a Democratic initiative to prepare for the 2020 round of congressional redistricting. Yet he said he plans to assume a low profile in the months after he leaves office, and to avoid commenting on politics on a daily basis.
Yet he carved out room for potential exceptions. Obama was insistent that he wouldn’t stay silent if Trump tried to deport children brought to the U.S. illegally.
“That would merit me speaking out,” Obama said.