Axelrod defends Obama

Axelrod defends Obama against Trump's Putin remarks

By Kristen East

While Donald Trump and his allies have spent much of this week suggesting Russian President Vladimir Putin is a stronger leader than President Barack Obama, David Axelrod said Trump should simply look at Obama’s approval ratings.

“Donald Trump is so fond of quoting polls, you think he would read the ones where the president has a majority getting him high marks for his presidency,” said Axelrod, who was the architect of Obama’s presidential campaigns.

Obama’s approval rating sat at 51 percent in the most recent Gallup poll.

“He has a positive approval rating, one of the few people on the current scene who can boast that,” Axelrod continued saying of Obama. “So you know, I think that most Americans were kind of scratching their heads about what Trump said, because as has been pointed out ad nauseam, Putin is a dictator, a ruthless leader.”

A number of Republicans, including Trump’s running mate Mike Pence and former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, have defended and advanced comments made by the nominee during NBC’s commander-in-chief forum on Wednesday night.

Axelrod said he believed it was “odd” that Pence would defend the comment while at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California.

“[Reagan] was so fundamentally at that time anti-Soviet, as a leader and was very clear with the difference in our systems. So really awkward stagecraft for the Trump campaign there,” he said.