Obama: Tea Party Got the Traction’ Because I Was ‘Very Foreign … and Scary’ to Some People

EXCERPT:

OBAMA: "Look, disentangling people’s motives, fears, you know, how much of it had do with the fact that I was the first African-American president, how much of it has do with the fact that, you know, despite some subsequent criticism from my allies on left, I was the most progressive Democratic presidential nominee that we'd seen in a while, it’s hard to say exactly. I think it is — I think it’s fair to say that something like the Tea Party does not get the traction, does not generate the heat that it does had it not been for the fact that I represented something that looked like something very foreign to people — to some people, and scary. I think if you tracked Fox News coverage all the way up through Tucker Carlson talking about, you know, white people are all being replaced and that Democrats are deliberately trying to bring in illegal immigrants and then give them voting rights and welfare checks to buy them off and and build the Democratic majority, I think it that’s — that argument probably gets less traction if it wasn’t me who was president at the time.”