Obama Uses Slavery Speech To Condemn Trump, Members of Congress Give Standing Ovation

12.09.2015 | News | Alicia Powe |

President Barack Obama denounce Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump‘s proposed Muslim ban on Wednesday during his speech commemorating the 150th anniversary of the Thirteenth Amendment’s abolishment of slavery.

“We gather here to commemorate a century and a half of freedom,” Obama said at the event at the U.S. Capitol Visitors Center. “Not simply for former slaves, but for all of us.”

Obama called on Americans to “hold fast to our values” and advance the work done by abolitionists and civil rights leaders.

“All it requires is that our generation be willing to do what those who came before us have done: to rise above the cynicism and rise above the fear. To remember that our freedom is bound up with the freedom of others. Regardless of what they look like, or where they come from, or what their last name is or what faith they practice,” Obama said towards the end of his nine-minute speech.

Politicians, media personnel and in attendance erupted with applause after the president’s line about faith, an indirect but clear jab at Trump’s proposed ban on Muslim immigration.

“We betray our most noble past if we were to deny the possibility of movement and the possibility of progress. If we were to let cynicism consume us and fear overwhelm us.”

The White House did not deny that the president’s comments were a shot at Trump.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest said at a press briefing Wednesday that the president’s speech “stands in stark contrast to message from a variety of Republican presidential candidates.”

Although the Obama administration currently refuses to temporarily pause its Syrian refugee resettlement program in the United States, the State Department in 2011 stopped processing Iraq refugee requests for six months after the Federal Bureau of Investigation uncovered evidence that several dozen terrorists from Iraq had infiltrated the United States via the refugee program.

Alicia Powe

Staff Writer

Alicia Powe is a staff writer for Daily Surge. She worked in the War Room of the Rudy Giuliani Presidential Committee and served as a White House Intern during the George W. Bush administration. Alicia has written for numerous outlets, including Human Events, Media Research Center and Townhall.com.

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