Obama: Trump exploiting blue-collar fears in campaign

HONOLULU – President Barack Obama, in a broadside against the leading Republican presidential candidate, says billionaire Donald Trump is “exploiting” the fears that working-class men in particular have about the economy and stagnant wages.

In a year-end interview with NPR News, Obama said demographic changes combined with the “economic stresses” people have been feeling because of the financial crisis, technology and globalization have made life harder for those who rely on a steady paycheck.

“Particularly blue-collar men have had a lot of trouble in this new economy, where they are no longer getting the same bargain that they got when they were going to a factory and able to support their families on a single paycheck,” Obama said in the radio interview released Monday. “You combine those things and it means that there is going to be potential anger, frustration, fear. Some of it justified but just misdirected.”

“I think somebody like Mr. Trump is taking advantage of that. That’s what he’s exploiting during the course of his campaign,” Obama said.

Trump has called for temporarily banning Muslims from entering the U.S. and has made inflammatory comments about Hispanics and others.

Obama sat for the interview last Thursday after returning from the National Counterterrorism Center, where he received a briefing on potential threats to the homeland. He said publicly after the briefing that his national security advisers had no specific, credible information suggesting a potential attack against the homeland.