Speaking at a fundraiser held by NBA legend and business mogul Earvin "Magic" Johnson, President Barack Obama defended his record and criticized a political system that "encourages people to think selfishly or short-term."
“We know what works, and what’s stopping us is a failure of our politics and a lack of ambition and we shy away from what might be hard," Obama said. "And our politics all too often encourages people to think selfishly or short-term, and that’s what the debate in Washington is about and that’s what the debate in this country generally is about right now.”
Obama also argued that his policies as president — in particular, Obamacare — have been a reflection of the values he holds.
"It’s also a values question," Obama said. "Do we want to live in a country as wealthy as we are where if somebody gets sick they lose their home, they go bankrupt, they have to weigh can I go right now to the emergency room knowing that that may mean I can’t pay for my child’s school tuition? That’s not the country I want to live in and that’s not the country you want to live in, which means we’ve got to fight for it.”
[h/t Talking Points Memo]
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