Obama rejects Trump's dark America 'This vision of violence and chaos everywhere, doesn't really jibe with the experience of most people,' the president says.

President Barack Obama on Friday strongly denounced the dark and dire terms in which Donald Trump and the Republican Party described the condition of the United States after nearly eight years of his presidency.

While remarking that he did not watch the convention, the president commented on reading "some of what was said and the one thing that I think is important to recognize is this idea that America is somehow on the verge of collapse, this vision of violence and chaos everywhere, doesn't really jibe with the experience of most people."


"I hope people, the next morning, walked outside and birds were chirping and the sun was out and this afternoon, people will be, you know, watching their kids play on sports teams and go to the swimming pool and folks are going to work and getting ready for the weekend," Obama said, speaking alongside Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto during a joint news conference. "And in particular, I think it is important, just to be absolutely clear here, that some of the fears that were expressed throughout the week just don't jibe with the facts."

Obama has shown a greater willingness to directly attack Trump, and has done so with gusto. After Trump whipped up terrorism fears in the wake of the Orlando massacre and suggested Obama was sympathetic to attackers, the president delivered a withering takedown of the billionaire, saying he "will not" let Trump's vision for the future take hold. Obama took a different tack as he hit the trail with Hillary Clinton, relishing the chance to mock Trump for his tweeting, saying his daughter Sasha can tweet, too — that doesn't meant she should be commander-in-chief.

On Friday, Obama was utterly dismissive of Trump's winding and dystopian prime-time convention speech in which the Republican nominee warned about spiking crime, dangerous trade deficits and runaway terrorism on the homefront.

Mentioning Trump's claims on rising crime, Obama acknowledged rising rates in certain cities and areas but also noted that the overall rates are "far lower" than when Ronald Reagan was president.

"We've just gone through a tragic period where we saw both, you know, tragedy in Minnesota and Baton Rouge and then the insanity and viciousness of people targeting police officers," he continued. "And we are all heartbroken by that and we're all troubled by how we can rebuild trust, support law enforcement and make sure the communities feel that they are being fairly policed."

On immigration, Obama said, "I think Americans expect that our immigration process is orderly and it is legal. And we have put unprecedented resources at our border."

Again, Obama compared himself favorably to Reagan, noting that the rate of legal migration into the U.S. is currently "lower by two-thirds than it was when Ronald Reagan was president."

"We have far fewer undocumented workers crossing the border today than we did in the '80s or the '90s, or when George Bush was president," he said. "That's a fact."

While acknowledging that there will be different visions for how to fix and improve the country, on issues from education to the budget to the tax system to inequality, Obama was adamant.

"But we're not going to make good decisions based on fears that don't have a basis in fact," Obama said. "And that, I think, is something that, I hope all Americans pay attention to. America is much less violent than it was 20, 30 years ago and immigration is much less a problem than it was, not just 20, 30 years ago, but when I came in as president. That doesn't mean we haven't solved those problems, but those are facts. I think that covers just about everything."

After his Mexican counterpart mentioned the importance of international trade agreements in the context of NAFTA and the Trans-Pacific Partnership, Obama made it clear that the time for an American retreat from the global stage has long since passed.

"And for all the talk about starting trade wars or increasing protectionist barriers, when you actually examine how our economies work, auto plants in the United States, for example, would have a very hard time producing the number of automobiles they produce and they've been having record years over the last several years, if they're also not getting some supplies from companies in Mexico," Obama said. "And companies in Mexico are not going to do well if they don't have some connection to not just markets, but also suppliers and technology from the United States. So we have to focus on how do we ensure the economy works for everybody and not just a few? There are dangers that globalization increases inequality, there are dangers because capital is mobile and workers are not if we are not providing them sufficient protection that they can be left behind in this process. And that's what we have to focus on and the Trans-Pacific Partnership is consistent with that."

"What I've said consistently is that globalization is a fact because of technology. Because of an integrated global supply chain. Because of changes in transportation," Obama said, before taking another dig at Trump, "And we're not going to be able to build a wall around that."