In his last press conference, Barack Obama said that he would enter political debates only when "our core values may be at stake." In the aftermath of President Trump's new executive orders, the former president is now wading back into public debates.
However, it should not be surprising to see Barack Obama trying to inject himself in political debates, nor for him is "core values" a particularly limiting principle. After all, in 2006, he had the following to say about Samuel Alito: "I think Judge Alito, in fact, is somebody who is contrary to core American values, not just liberal values, you know." If a mainstream conservative like Justice Alito is "contrary to core American values," you can rest assured that Barack Obama would be declaring almost any Republican president eventually an enemy of "our core values."
