President Barack Obama is confident that Donald Trump won't succeed him as president in 2017. | AP Photo Obama: ‘Mr. Trump is not succeeding me’

President Barack Obama in his most emphatic terms yet disputed the idea that Donald Trump will win this presidential election.

“I recognize that there is a deep obsession right now about Mr. Trump,” Obama told attendees of a Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee fundraiser Thursday evening in Santa Monica, California. “And one of you pulled me aside and squeezed me hard and said, ‘Tell me that Mr. Trump is not succeeding you.’ And I said, ‘Mr. Trump is not succeeding me.’”


Obama credited Trump and his primary rival, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, for exposing “some of the nonsense that we’ve been dealing with in Congress on a daily basis.”

“People act as if these folks are outliers. But they’re not,” Obama said, pointing to what Republicans in general say during interviews, on talk radio and in town halls. “They’re saying stuff that’s just as wacky as what we’re hearing out of the presidential candidates. It’s just nobody was paying attention.”

Democrats should thank Trump and Cruz for their honesty, Obama remarked, while also expressing that their rhetoric provides a look into what’s at stake in this election — which he said is about more than why Democrats can take America in a better direction than Republicans.

Obama recalled that during trips in Democratic circles he’s praised for his work the last seven-plus years but told that people aren’t that excited about this election.

“And I say I have no patience for that. I say thank you very much, first,” Obama said. “But then I say to folks, we cannot be complacent, and we cannot be cynical, because the stakes are too high. And we should take pride in what we've accomplished over the last seven and a half years, not because every problem was fixed, but because it showed the steady progress that happens when people who love this country decide to change it.”

“And that should be a spur, a call to action,” he added. “And it starts not just at the presidential level, but in us recognizing the enormous power of Congress and the difference between a Nancy Pelosi being speaker of the House and a Paul Ryan being speaker of the House.”