Rallies Democrats

Obama rallies House Democrats with fiery partisan speech

By Lauren French

President Barack Obama took a victory lap Thursday evening.

During a short speech to House Democrats at their policy retreat here, Obama counted off his biggest policy achievements as president while predicting that Democrats would win the White House next November.

The partisan speech was designed to excite Democrats already squarely behind Obama. He bragged that he exceeded expectations set by Mitt Romney, the Republican presidential nominee in 2012, on driving down the unemployment rate to 5 percent and said he achieved a historic agreement with Iran.

"Our policies rescued the economy from the worst crisis in generations," Obama said. "We have now seen the longest streak of private sector job creation in our history. Sometimes I get a little frustrated that we don't run back the tape to what the Republicans said back then. Every single of the steps we took...they wanted to go in a different direction, claimed that our policies would crush jobs and destroy the economy. Do people remember that?"

Looking ahead to 2016, Obama said he would be succeeded by a Democrat but didn’t name the two top contenders, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, who are both fiercely looking secure wins in Iowa’s early primary.

Obama made waves last week when he gave an interview to POLITICO suggesting Clinton was the most qualified for the job. But on Thursday, Obama didn’t tilt his remarks toward either candidate.

“I’m not worried about this party staying united. The other side may have some stuff to work but our trajectory is clear. Everyone is scouring my every word to find some deeper meaning to see if I’m trying to put my fingers on the scales,” Obama said. “Let me simplify things: Tonight I have an announcement about the presidential race. Democrats will win in November. The reason I can say that with confidence is because we focus on the things that matter in the lives of the American people.”

Obama spent most of the address attacking Republicans for a narrow focus center on opposing his agenda. He slammed congressional Republicans for opposing the Iran nonproliferation deal, voting-rights reform and measure to combat climate change.

Democrats, he argued, will see political success in 2016 because the party is focused on issues favored by the vast majority of Americans.

“We believe that our politics should reflect what’s best in us. I’m not going to claim that Democrats are perfect. I’m not going to claim that we are right on every single issue,” Obama said. “We hold ourselves to a higher standard. That we can do better.”

Echoing his State of the Union address, parts of which were widely interpreted as a broadside against Donald Trump, Obama added, “We're not going to strengthen our leadership … by allowing politicians to insult Muslims or pit groups … against each other.”

In a private question-and-answer session, lawmakers asked Obama about his administration's stepped-up deportations of immigrants in the United States illegally. Congressional Democrats have been highly critical of the move, while the White House has argued that it is constricted by the law and a broken immigration system while trying to downplay the number of individuals who have been deported.

Vice President Joe Biden was similarly questioned when he spoke to the Democratic lawmakers Thursday afternoon.