Reverend Jeremiah Wright, the man who infamously said that “America’s chickens are coming home to roost” in response to the 9/11 massacre, is a “supremely gifted preacher” according to former President Barack Obama.
Speaking on “The Breakfast Club” radio show, Obama said that Sen. Kelly Loeffler’s (R-GA) attacks against her opponent, Raphael Warnock, and his connections to Jeremiah Wright, were off-base.
“I wanted to ask you something about Rev. Jeremiah Wright from in your book — ‘cause you’ve addressed it, Michelle Obama has addressed it. Do you think that in today’s climate, the comments and the speeches that Jeremiah Wright gave would still be looked at the same way where you would have had to distance yourself from him today?” co-host Angela Yee asked Obama.
“It’s an interesting thing, as I write about in the book, Rev. Wright is an example of somebody who – supremely gifted preacher, Trinity United Church of Christ on the South Side of Chicago had amazing ministry, still does. And I was very close to a lot of people in that congregation as well as Rev. Wright,” Obama responded, as reported by Fox News.
Obama believed that Jeremiah Wright’s comments were largely taken out of context and simplified into a soundbite for political purposes.
“In national politics, if you can take out a bunch of sound bites that say ‘God damn America,’ even if the context of it is prophetic and biblical and he’s trying to describe, you know, how somebody might feel – he wasn’t promoting the notion that God was damning America,” Obama said. “He was making the point that if you looked at slavery and discrimination, you could see the conclusion of people feeling that there was not an alignment with Christian values and America. But if you’d see a two-minute soundbite, trying to explain that is too complicated.”
Speaking with Stephen Colbert, Obama also said that President Trump’s administration exceeded his “worst” fears.
“You couldn’t make up some of the stuff that you’re seeing,” Obama told Colbert. “And it is to the detriment of the country. But as you said … it runs contrary to what would have been smart politics if the Republicans wanted to maintain the White House.”
Obama said that a Biden/Harris presidency will be something “great.”
“Joe’s gonna be great, and Kamala’s gonna be great,” he said, later adding: “We’ve got the potential of returning to a presidency that is actually paying attention and trying to do right by all people and not just some.”
During his interview on “The Breakfast Club,” Obama also ripped Hispanics who voted for Trump, labeling them “Evangelicals” who care about abortion and same-sex marriage more than racism.
“People were surprised about a lot of Hispanic folks who voted for Trump,” Obama said. “But there are a lot of evangelical Hispanics who, the fact that Trump says racist things about Mexicans, or puts detainees, undocumented workers in cages, they think that’s less important than the fact that he supports their views on gay marriage or abortion.”