US President Barack Obama has ridiculed the Republican establishment for being “shocked” by the rise of Donald Trump to the GOP presidential frontrunner.
“What’s happening in this primary is just a distillation of what’s been happening in their party for more than a decade,” Obama said Friday at a fundraiser for the Democratic National Committee in Austin, Texas.
Republican leaders have expressed frustration with Trump’s growing momentum on the campaign trail and are urgently moving to prevent the billionaire businessman from securing the party’s nomination.
Obama said Republicans should have predicted the rise of Trump, and accused them of ignoring his past.
The president blistered the GOP for acting surprised that “someone is fanning anti-immigrant or anti-Muslim sentiment.”
“How could you be shocked?” Obama exclaimed. “This was the guy who was sure I was born in Kenya. Who just wouldn’t let it go. And all this same…