In Ethiopia, Obama Says Republican Rhetoric ‘Would Be Ridiculous If It Weren’t So Sad’

President Barack Obama is in Ethiopia’s capital this week to discuss security, human rights, and good governance in Africa. But that didn’t stop him from diving into domestic American politics on Monday to bash Republicans, many of whom recently made inflammatory remarks the president said “would be considered ridiculous if it weren’t so sad.”

Taking questions alongside Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn at a joint press conference in Addis Ababa, Obama suggested GOP presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee’s recent comparison of the Iran nuclear deal to the Holocaust was just an effort to push party challenger Donald Trump off front-page news.

Huckabee said Saturday that by signing the nuclear deal with Iran, Obama is leading Israelis “to the door of the oven” with Iran, likely referencing the gas chambers that systematically killed Jews during World War II.

“When you get rhetoric like this, maybe it gets attention, and maybe this is just an effort to push Mr. Trump out of the headlines,” he said.

Unprompted, Obama then came to the defense of Republican Sen. John McCain, his opponent in the 2008 presidential race. Obama criticized Trump for mocking McCain’s capture in Vietnam, where the former prisoner of war endured years of imprisonment and even torture.

Earlier this month, Trump said he likes “people that weren’t captured.”

Obama also brought up remarks by Sens. Tom Cotton (R-Ariz.) and Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and said their recent provocative comments about Democrats are becoming the norm.

“We’ve had a sitting senator call John Kerry ‘Pontius Pilate.’ We’ve had a sitting senator, who also happens to be running for president, suggest that I’m the leading state sponsor of terrorism,” Obama said. “These are leaders in the Republican Party.”

These remarks came as a surprise not only because of their relative irrelevance to Obama’s travels in Africa, but also because the lame-duck president has been wary of wading into the 2016 race. Many of his remarks on GOP rhetoric Monday sounded more like he was thinking out loud than addressing a full room of journalists. But the president said he is genuinely worried by the way insults have been normalized in political debate.

“In 18 months, I’m turning over the keys,” he said. “I want to make sure I’m turning over the keys to somebody who is serious about the serious problems [that] the country faces and the world faces.”

Photo credit: SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images