US President Barack Obama speaks during a fundraiser at the Washington State Convention Center in Seattle, Washington on June 24. | Getty Obama denies Trump's influence on 'zeitgeist'

Even after Donald Trump has effectively clinched the Republican presidential nomination after winning more votes than any candidate in party history, the man he is looking to replace in the White House is not sold on his ability to win over the rest of the country.

"I think it's pretty hard to argue that somebody who almost three-quarters of the country thinks is unqualified to be president and has a negative opinion about is tapping into the zeitgeist of the country or is speaking for a broad base of the country. But we'll find out," President Barack Obama told NPR's Steve Inskeep in an interview conducted this week.


Trump, and presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, for that matter, have consistently polled in negative territory in terms of favorability in the general electorate. In a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, a majority of Republican voters surveyed said they would prefer someone other than Trump be their party's standard bearer, while an ABC News/Washington Post survey showed support plunging for Trump and Clinton surging to a 12-point lead. The two are effectively tied in another poll from Quinnipiac University out Wednesday, with Clinton up 42 percent to 40 percent but with both candidates below 40 percent in terms of favorability. The ABC News/Washington Post poll found that 64 percent of Americans see Trump as unqualified for the presidency, while 37 percent said the same for Clinton.

Inskeep had asked Obama about a comment he made during his 2008 presidential run in which he said that presidents like John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan "changed the trajectory" of the country, inquiring as to whether the president thought that Trump could say the same thing. Obama responded, "Well, if he won, he could say that."

"Look, that's what elections are for," Obama said, remarking that the next four months will be a test to see the true impact of Trump's campaign on the country, "and I think it's important for Democrats, progressives, moderates, people who care about our traditions, who care about pluralism, who care about tolerance, who care about facts, who think climate change is real, who think that we have to reform our immigration system in an intelligent way, who believe in women's equality and equality for the LGBT community — I think it's important for those of us not to be complacent, not to be smug."

Obama's approval rating in the ABC News/Washington Post poll stood at 56 percent, his highest in five years in that particular survey, and other polls have shown similar increases in recent months.