Just two days after President Barack Obama gave a sharply edged response to news anchor Larry Conners of KMOV in St. Louis after Conners had asked the president about Americans who “get frustrated and even angered when they see the first family jetting around [to] different vacations and so forth,” Obama told a panel at the Summit of the Americas in Cartagena, Colombia that part of his job there was to scout out locations for a future vacation with First Lady Michelle Obama.
Obama was speaking on a panel with Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos and Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff when he made the remarks. The panel was moderated by Chris Matthews of MSNBC.
“I want to thank President Santos and the people of Colombia for the extraordinary hospitality in the beautiful city of Cartagena,” said Obama. “We’re having a wonderful time. And usually when I take these summit trips, part of my job is to scout out where I may want to bring Michelle back later for vacation. So we’ll make sure to come back sometime in the near future.”
Obama, the two other presidents, and Chris Matthews were sitting in white armchairs for the panel. Obama was wearing a blue blazer, but was not wearing a tie.
On Thursday, Obama had invited Larry Conners of KMOV to interview him one-on-one at the White House. Conners asked him—in an exchange picked up by The Blaze–about the perception he said some KMOV viewers had that the president and his family took multiple vacations.
“Some of our viewers are complaining they just don’t–they get frustrated and even angered, when they see the first family jetting around, different vacations and so forth, sometimes maybe they think under color of state business and that you’re out of touch, that you don’t really know what they’re experiencing right now,” Conners told the president.
“”I don’t know how many viewers you’re talking about that say that,” said Obama.
“We do hear from some. Yes, sir,” said Conners.
“I hear from all kinds of viewers about everything,” said Obama.
“I am sure you do,” said Conners.
“But the fact of the matter is, I think if you look at my track record, I’m raising a family here,” said Obama. “When we travel, we’ve got to travel through Secret Service and Air Force One. That’s not my choice. I think most folks understand how hard I work and how hard this administration is working on behalf of the American people.”
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7 Responses
On Election Day we can vote to make him Vacationer in Chief 24/7.
We are all hoping he’ll be able to take a nice long vacation starting in late January.
You can hope fin haint biz morgen, but he WILL be re elected
Right, and Republican presidents never go on vacations, right? It’s not like George W. Bush was working nearly half the time from his ranch in Texas, is it?
The president is someone with a stressful and very high-level job. There is nothing wrong with him taking some good vacations now and then. Let’s keep in mind the president is never really on vacation – he’ll still be spending at least 4-5 hours of the day on work (and that would be VERY little, it’s more likely something like 8 hours).
Just another in a long list of gaffes committed by this president when not reading his teleprompter. What a dumb thing to say a) after the recent PR fiasco there and b)considering the state of the economy here.
Come on. His record of family travel at public expense is disgraceful, but this remark was clearly a joke.
#4, Bush was not on vacation in Texas, he was working. He didn’t spend anything even close to what this president has spent on extravagant vacations for himself and his family. Obama is also always playing golf; he played more golf in six months than Bush did in eight years.