Obama warns Trump administration has 'weak commitment' to democracy [View all]

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Obama warns Trump administration has 'weak commitment' to democracy


Former President Barack Obama warned about a "weak commitment" to democracy by President Donald Trump's administration and the U.S. "drifting" into autocracy during a speech in Connecticut, according to media reports.

Obama spoke with Boston College professor and popular newsletter writer Heather Cox Richardson at the The Bushnell Performing Arts Center in Hartford June 17.

“If you follow regularly what is said by those who are in charge of the federal government right now, there is a weak commitment to what we understood – and not just my generation, at least since World War II – our understanding of how a liberal democracy is supposed to work,” Obama said.

Obama didn't mention Trump. But he worried about the nation "drifting into something that is not consistent with American democracy. It is consistent with autocracies.”

"We're not there yet completely, but I think that we are dangerously close to normalizing behavior like that,” Obama said, according to reports.