President Donald Trump has sought to blame his predecessor Barack Obama and his aides for the recent leaks to the media about his alleged Russian connection and the wave of protests that Republican lawmakers are currently facing across the US in town hall meetings.
“In terms of him (Obama) being behind things, that’s politics. And it will probably continue,” Trump commented in an interview to Fox News on Tuesday, ahead of his first address to the US Congress. There was no immediate response from Obama to the accusation.
Asked pointedly about the leaks that have embarrassed and hobbled his administration in its first five weeks, Trump said: “I think that President Obama’s behind it because his people are certainly behind it. And some of the leaks possibly come from that group, which are really serious because they are very bad in terms of national security.”
He prefaced his direct accusation by conceding: “You never know what’s exactly happening behind the scenes. You know, you’re probably right or possibly right, but you never know.”
Besides the leaks over his alleged Russian links which, Democrats believe is one reason why Hillary Clinton lost, Trump has also been embarrassed by the leaks to media about his angry telephone conversations with Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto earlier this month.
Trump, again without offering any evidence, also accused the Obama camp of organising the demonstrations nationwide against Republican lawmakers at town hall meetings.
“I think he is behind it. I also think it is politics, that’s the way it is,” Trump replied when one of the Fox interviewers suggested that Obama’s political group, Organising for Action, appeared to be organising some of these protests.
In the interview, Trump, no matter what several opinion polls may be saying about the high disapproval of his performance so far, asserted that he would give himself an “A” for his achievement. However, in terms of messaging, he said he would give himself just a “C or C plus”.
Former President George W. Bush, meanwhile, broke his silence on Trump’s leadership and criticized him on several counts.
“I don’t like the racism and I don’t like the name-calling and I don’t like the people feeling alienated,” Bush told “People” magazine in an interview to mark the launch of his first art book, “Portraits of Courage: A Commander in Chief’s Tribute to America’s Warriors.” He felt the political climate in Trump’s Washington was “pretty ugly”.
Speaking to NBC News, Bush said the American public needs answers on the alleged links between Trump’s presidential campaign aides and Russian officials.
Bush also disagreed with Trump’s ongoing war with the media. Saying a free press “indispensable to democracy”, Bush commented: “We need an independent media to hold people like me to account. Power can be very addictive and it can be corrosive.”
“One of the things I spent a lot of time doing was trying to convince people like Vladimir Putin, for example, to accept the notion of an independent press,” Bush said, adding: “It’s kind of hard to tell others to have an independent, free press when we’re not willing to have one ourselves.”