WASHINGTON: President Barack Obama addressed his last press conference at the White House on Wednesday, defending some of his decisions which met criticism and sounding a note of caution to president-elect Donald Trump that rolling back his major initiatives would invite a backlash.
“I won’t stay silent if Trump tried to deport children brought to the US illegally,” the president warned. He sought to protect the group through executive action a number of times over the past eight years.
“That would merit me speaking out,” Obama said.
Obama’s comments came as he prepares to exit the presidency after eight years marked by major victories on health care, the economy and climate change, along with disappointments over his inability to achieve his goals on immigration, gun control and closing the Guantanamo Bay prison.
He also wound down wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but wrestled with other security threats posed by the militant Islamic State group and the Syria civil war he was unable to resolve.
Even many of Obama’s proudest achievements, like the “Obamacare” health care overhaul, stand to be rolled back or undermined by president-elect Donald Trump, a shadow that hangs over Obama’s legacy as he leaves office.
The formal end comes on Friday when Obama and Trump will motorcade together to the Capitol for Trump’s swearing-in before Obama, then an ex-president, flies with his family to California for a vacation.
Appearing for the last time in front of the White House seal, Obama also 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 US 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 US economic embargo and the restoration of commercial flights between the U.S. and the small island nation.
“That was a carry-over of an old way of thinking that didn’t make sense in this day and age, particularly as we’re opening up travel between the two countries,” Obama said of the “wet foot, dry foot” policy.
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.
Published in Dawn January 19th, 2017
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