Hailed diversity at 250-year old campus, while slamming past boycott of ex-State Department head Conoleezza Rice as 'misguided'

Obama even said the political system 'isn't as rigged as you think'

The president condemned 'ignorance' and talk of 'building walls' in politics

President Obama used his commencement speech at Rutgers University to tear into Donald Trump's trade agenda, his Muslim ban, and his planned wall on the U.S.-Mexico border.

As he did at an address at Howard University earlier this spring, the president went straight after Trump's most controversial policies after the usual bromides hailing graduates and name-dropping their favorite greasy spoons and watering holes.

'The world is more interconnected than ever before. And it's becoming more connected every day. Building walls won't change that,' Obama said.

'To help ourselves, we've got to help others, not pull up the drawbridge and try to keep the world out,' Obama said.

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Could he mean Trump? President Obama says 'building walls' won't stop global changes

Obama said only by cooperating with the rest of the world could the United States make sure other countries don't cheat on trade deals or steal copyrights.

Trump regularly blasts trade deals - including the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiated by Obama - as ripoffs.

Obama didn't mention Trump by name, but he did go after his proposed ban on Muslims entering the U.S.

'It won't boost our economy and it won't enhance our security either – isolating or disparaging Muslims, suggesting they will be treated differently when it comes to entering this county,' he said.

Obama even seemed to go after Trump's 'Make America Great Again' slogan.

'It's part of human nature, especially in times of change and uncertainty to want to look back at a long forgotten imaginary past when everything worked and the economy worked,' Obama said. And America did pretty much whatever it wanted around the world. Guess what, it ain't so. The good old days weren't all that good.'

Scarlet Knighted: Obama picked up a new robe, and an 'honorary' degree

He used his address to tear into Donald Trump's agenda

50,000 students gathered to see the first sitting U.S. president address the New Jersey school

'By almost every measure America is better and the world is better than it was 50 years ago or 30 years ago or even eight years ago,' the president said, pointing to drops in crime, poverty, and other metrics.

He also referenced the 'America first' theme of Trump's recent foreign policy address.

'As citizens we all put our country fist,' he said.

Then Obama went after anti-intellectualism as well as the argument for a political outsider, comparing it to the need to have a trained pilot to fly a plane. It was a not-subtle suggestion to avoid electing the businessman Trump over Hillary Clinton, with her deep political resume – although Obama himself ran on a 'Change' theme against Clinton in 2008.

'And yet in our public lives we suddenly think: I don't want somebody who's done it before,' Obama lamented.

'In politics and in life, ignorance is not a virtue,' Obama said. 'It's not cool to not know what you're talking about. That's not keeping it real or telling it like it is. That's not challenging political correctness. That's just not knowing what you're talking about.'

'When our leaders express a disdain for facts. When they're not held accountable for repeating falsehoods and just making stuff up, and actual experts are dismissed as elitists, then we've got a problem,' Obama said.

Obama, who broke fundraising records as a presidential candidate, said big money in politics is a 'huge problem.'

But he continued: 'The system isn't as rigged as you think and it certainly isn't as hopeless as you think.'

Trump regularly rails against the 'rigged' political process – but he has spoken mostly in the context of states that don't award delegates to the popular majority vote winner, the use of super delegates, and the way some states award delegates through conventions instead of the popular vote.

Obama even threw a bone to Clinton's rival, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, who regularly vents about low voter turnout.

'A huge chunk of Americans, especially young people, do not vote,' Obama said.

Obama was the first sitting president to address students at Rutgers, a school that was one of nine original 'colonial colleges' before the U.S. became a nation.

The president criticized a 2014 boycott of former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's commencement speech

Rice (pictured at a Boston College address in 2006) backed out of a speech at Rutgers in 2014 after protests

'The world is more interconnected than ever before. And it's becoming more connected every day. Building walls won't change that,' Obama said in an apparent dig at Donald Trump

Obama also picked up an 'honorary' doctorate of laws, which he called one of the perks of his job.

'But I have to tell you, it impresses nobody in my house. Now Malia and Sasha just say, 'Okay Dr. Dad we'll see you later. Can we have some money?'

Obama said despite the scourge of money, 'If you vote and you elect a majority that represents your views, you will get what you want and if you opt out or stop paying attention you won't. It's that simple.'

Obama defended former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who backed out of a 2014 speech at Rutgers after facing a boycott over the Iraq war and 'torture' of detainees.

'The notion that this community or the country would be better served by not hearing from a former secretary of state or shutting out what she had to say – I believe that's misguided,' Obama said.

Obama went after global warming-deniers, then did some cherry-picking of his own when it came to statistics.