Obama lectures the press on Trump coverage: 'Do you mind if I just vent for a second?'

Oliver Darcy

9/13/2016

President Barack Obama took some time out of a speech Tuesday to rake members of the media over the coals for coverage of Donald Trump.

Obama, speaking at a Philadelphia rally for Hillary Clinton, said he was "frustrated with how this campaign is covered."

"I'm just telling the truth. Guys in the back, I'm just telling you the truth about how I feel about this," the president said, speaking directly to the members of the media toward the back of the rally.

Obama then asked the crowd: "Do you mind if I just vent for a second?"

Obama contended that Clinton and Trump were starkly different on a number of issues.

"You want to debate who is more fit to be our president?" he asked. "One candidate has traveled to more countries than any secretary of state ever has, has more qualifications than pretty much anyone who has ever run for this job, and the other, who isn't fit in any way, shape, or form to represent this country abroad and be commander-in-chief."

"And Donald Trump says stuff every day that used to be considered as disqualifying for being president," Obama continued. "And yet because he says it over and over and over again, the press just gives up, and they just say, 'Well, yeah. OK!'"

The president added: "They just — 'I was opposed to the war in Iraq.' Well, actually he wasn't. But they just accept it!"

Obama was likely referencing a moment in which NBC News anchor Matt Lauer didn't press Trump on his false claim that he was against the Iraq war at the outset.

"The bottom line is that we cannot afford to suddenly treat this like a reality show," Obama said. "We can't afford to act as if there is some equivalence here. To be president, you have to do your homework, and you have to know what you're talking about."