Former President Obama wrote in his memoir that the selection of then-Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R) as the late Sen. John McCain’s (R-Ariz.) 2008 running mate began a rightward shift in the party that McCain himself “abhorred.”
“Through Palin, it seemed as if the dark spirits that had long been lurking on the edges of the modern Republican Party — xenophobia, anti intellectualism, paranoid conspiracy theories, an antipathy toward Black and brown folks — were finding their way to center stage,” Obama wrote in his memoir, “A Promised Land,” a copy of which was obtained by CNN.
“I’d like to think that given the chance to do it over again, [McCain] might have chosen differently,” Obama added. “I believe he really did put his country first.”
Obama also addresses the period in 2011 when now-President Trump became an influential figure in conservative media by promoting the false conspiracy theory that Obama was not born in the United States. This period, he said, cemented Trump’s conviction that he would be rewarded with media attention for behavior that was perceived as crossing a line.
“In that sense, there wasn’t much difference between Trump and [former Speaker John] Boehner [R-Ohio] or [Senate Majority Leader Mitch] McConnell [R-Ky.],” he wrote. “They, too, understood that it didn’t matter whether what they said was true. In fact, the only difference between Trump’s style of politics and theirs was Trump’s lack of inhibition.”
The former president also writes that then-Vice President Joe Biden was particularly useful in light of this posture in the GOP.
“One of the reasons I’d chosen Joe to act as an intermediary — in addition to his Senate experience and legislative acumen — was my awareness that in McConnell’s mind, negotiations with the vice president didn’t inflame the Republican base in quite the same way that any appearance of cooperation with (Black, Muslim socialist) Obama was bound to do,” he wrote.
Obama’s 768-page memoir is due to be released Nov. 17.