President Obama took another dig at presidential hopeful Donald Trump. On Sunday, May 15, Obama made an appearance at Rutgers University in New Jersey, where he delivered a very candid and poignant commencement speech.
Although the commander-in-chief didn’t specifically name Trump while addressing the graduating class, he did take a brief moment to criticize many of the presumptive Republican nominee’s controversial ideas, including temporarily banning Muslims from entering the U.S. and building a wall between the good old USA and Mexico, among other things.
“Let me be as clear as I can be: In politics and in life, ignorance is not a virtue,” Obama said, reports CBS News. “It’s not cool to not know what you’re talking about. That’s not keeping it real or telling it like it is. That’s not challenging political correctness. That’s just not knowing what you’re talking about. And yet we’ve become confused about this.”
In politics and in life, ignorance is not a virtue. It’s not cool to not know what you’re talking about. @POTUS #RU250Grad
— Rutgers University (@RutgersU) May 15, 2016
“Isolating or disparaging Muslims, suggesting they should be treated differently when entering this country — that is not just a betrayal of our values, that’s not just a betrayal of who we are, it would alienate the very communities at home and abroad that are our most important partners in the fight against violent extremism,” he continued.
Of course, the long time education advocate also used the opportunity to school the more than 17,000 graduates before him, about the important qualities to look for in policy-makers, including “facts, evidence, reason, logic.” Adding, “These are good things. These are qualities you want in people making policy. These are qualities you want to continue to cultivate in yourselves as citizens.” He went on to note the dangers of isolating our nation from the rest of the globe. “The world is more interconnected than ever before and it’s becoming more connected every day,” Obama added. “Building walls won’t change that.”
Well said President, well said.
