President Obama slammed Donald Trump during a speech at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Friday afternoon, criticizing his frequent tirades and threats against the FBI and Attorney General Jeff Sessions over the ongoing Russia investigation.

“It should not be Democratic or Republican, it should not be a partisan issue, to say that we do not pressure the attorney general or the FBI to use the criminal justice system as a cudgel to punish our political opponents, or to explicitly call on the attorney general to protect members of our own party from prosecution because an election happens to be coming up,” he said.

Turning to Trump’s frequent attacks on the media, Obama added, “It shouldn’t be Democratic or Republican to say that we don’t threaten the freedom of the press because they say things or publish stories we don’t like. I complained plenty about Fox News. But you never heard me threaten to shut them down. Or call them enemies of the people.”

Obama was specifically referring to threats made towards Sessions, whom Trump has repeatedly criticized for his decision to recuse himself from the Russia investigation last year. In August, the president suggested he might fire Sessions and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein after the November midterm elections, citing their unwillingness to prosecute his political opponents.


“The only reason I gave [Sessions] the job [was] because I felt loyalty. He was an original supporter. He was on the campaign,” Trump told Fox & Friends‘ Ainsley Earhardt in August.

“I wanted to stay uninvolved,” he added. “But when everybody sees what’s going on in the Justice Department, I always put ‘Justice’ now with quotes.”

Sessions has been a favorite target of the president since he agreed to cede oversight of the Russia investigation in March 2017. In the months thereafter, Trump fired former FBI Director James Comey — admittedly over his investigation into collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian officials — prompting Rosenstein to appoint Special Counsel Robert Mueller to carry out the remainder of the probe, as well as to examine whether Trump purposefully obstructed justice in firing Comey.

In July 2017, Trump aired his grievances in an interview with The New York Times, bashing Sessions for not remaining on the case, thereby hampering his ability to do Trump’s political bidding. “Sessions should have never recused himself and if he was going to recuse himself he should have told me before he took the job and I would have picked somebody else,” he said.

Two long running, Obama era, investigations of two very popular Republican Congressmen were brought to a well publicized charge, just ahead of the Mid-Terms, by the Jeff Sessions Justice Department. Two easy wins now in doubt because there is not enough time. Good job Jeff…… — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 3, 2018

More recently, Trump has targeted Sessions over his decision to bring criminal charges against two Republican congressmen, Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA), who was indicted in August on allegations he misused hundreds of thousands in campaign funds; and Rep. Chris Collins (R-NY), who was indicted on insider trading charges earlier that month. Both men have pleaded not guilty to the charges against them, and both are staunch allies of Trump in Congress.


“Two long running, Obama era, investigations of two very popular Republican Congressmen were brought to a well publicized charge, just ahead of the Mid-Terms, by the Jeff Sessions Justice Department,” Trump tweeted September 3. “Two easy wins now in doubt because there is not enough time. Good job Jeff……”

TREASON? — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 5, 2018

Obama’s decision to condemn Trump’s attacks on the press also comes at a particularly tense moment: On Wednesday, the Times published an anonymous op-ed by an unnamed Trump administration official, in which they claimed to be part of a “resistance” within the administration to act against the president’s reckless policies.

The president’s rebuke was swift. “TREASON?” he tweeted hours after the op-ed was published.

In a follow-up tweet, he added, “Does the so-called ‘Senior Administration Official’ really exist, or is it just the Failing New York Times with another phony source? If the GUTLESS anonymous person does indeed exist, the Times must, for National Security purposes, turn him/her over to government at once!”


On Thursday, Trump upped the ante once more. “The Deep State and the Left, and their vehicle, the Fake News Media, are going Crazy – & they don’t know what to do,” he wrote.

Trump has frequently assailed the media as “fake news” and suggested, on more than one occasion, that journalists are “the enemy of the people.” That rhetoric has prompted a barrage of harassment directed at the press over the past year, most recently on August 30, when a man in California was arrested and charged with threatening violence against Boston Globe reporters. The man allegedly made a series of calls to the news outlet in which he threatened to shoot employees “in the head,” and called them “the enemy of the people.”

The line appeared to be stolen directly from the president himself, who on August 30 tweeted, “I just cannot state strongly enough how totally dishonest much of the Media is. Truth doesn’t matter to them, they only have their hatred & agenda. This includes fake books, which come out about me all the time, always anonymous sources, and are pure fiction. Enemy of the People!”