Obama Condemns Trump in Fiery Address

“This is not normal. These are not ordinary times, these are dangerous times,” the former president, who since leaving office has avoided direct attacks on Trump, said during a speech at the University of Illinois, The Hill reported.

Obama criticized Trump for politicizing the Department of Justice, saying that members of both parties should be concerned with that behavior.

Obama's remarks were critical of a tweet the president wrote criticizing the Justice Department for investigations of two Republican congressman. Trump criticized Justice's actions, saying they would make it more difficult for Republicans to hold the House.

"It should not be Democratic or Republican, it should not be a partisan issue, to say that we do not pressure the attorney general or the FBI to use the criminal justice system as a cudgel to punish our political opponents," Obama said, adding that "or to explicitly call on the attorney general to protect members of our own party from prosecution because an election happens to be coming up".

Obama also criticized Trump in a highly anticipated speech for capitalizing on racial and economic resentments that he said had been fanned for years by politicians, stepping off the political sidelines and offering a rare criticism of the sitting president by name.

"It did not start with Donald Trump. He is a symptom, not the cause," Obama said of current political tensions during the speech.

"He's just capitalizing on resentments politicians have been fanning for years," he continued, noting that "a fear, an anger that’s rooted in our past, but it's also born of the upheavals that have taken place in your brief lifetimes".

Obama's speech on Friday called for a re-examination of American values and ideals.

“I’m here today because this is one of those pivotal moments when every one of us as citizens of the United States need to determine just who it is that we are, just what it is that we stand for,” Obama stressed.

While Obama has occasionally delivered veiled criticisms of his successor since leaving office, he refrained for more than a year from taking on Trump by name.

Trump responded hours later by laughing off Obama's attacks, telling the audience at a Fargo, N.D., fundraiser that the speech bored him.

"I'm sorry. I watched it, but I fell asleep. I found he's very good — very good for sleeping," Trump said.

Obama had long sought to distance himself from the political fights of the Trump era, rarely criticizing the president even as Trump frequently lashed out at his predecessor.

The former president left office saying he wanted to follow the example of his predecessor, George W. Bush, who stayed out of the political arena after departing Washington. And in his opening remarks, he talked about how George Washington had gracefully exited the stage, setting a path for future presidents.

But Obama and his aides have said he would jump into the fray if he saw norms being violated or core achievements overturned.

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