President Obama’s final State of the Union address recap
President Barack Obama knocked Republican presidential candidates for anti-Muslim rhetoric and accused critics on Tuesday of playing into the hands of Islamic State in a speech aimed at setting an optimistic tone for his last year in office.
Obama, delivering his last State of the Union speech to Congress before leaving office next year, said it was fiction to declare the United States was in economic decline or getting weaker on the international stage.
In a direct slap at Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump, Obama said insulting Muslims hurt the United States and “betrayed” its identity.
“When politicians insult Muslims … that doesn’t make us safer,” he said, drawing applause from the crowd in the House of Representatives chamber. “It’s just wrong. It diminishes us in the eyes of the world. It makes it harder to achieve our goals.”
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10:52:30 PMIn the Republican response to President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address, South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley took a softer tone on immigration than the harsh rhetoric often heard from her party’s presidential candidates.
“Immigrants have been coming to our shores for generations to live the dream that is America,” Haley said in a speech delivered from Columbia, the state capital.
Following Obama’s lead, she appeared to use the speech as an occasion to respond to Donald Trump, the front runner for the Republican nomination who has called for a ban on allowing Muslims to enter the United States.
“Some people think that you have to be the loudest voice in the room to make a difference,” she said. “That is just not true. Often, the best thing we can do is turn down the volume. When the sound is quieter, you can actually hear what someone else is saying. And that can make a world of difference.”
Haley’s speech was praised by both sides of politics. Former Obama strategist David Axelrod tweeted: “Really effective speech by @nikkihaley. Avoided the Response to SOTU curse.”
