US President Barack Obama said running against Donald Trump would have been "fun," in light-hearted remarks published today that appeared to ridicule the Republican frontrunner's White House campaign.
Obama made the comments in a wide-ranging interview with the men's lifestyle magazine GQ in which the president addresses everything from his passion for basketball to the number of cigarettes he has smoked since arriving at the White House ("zero in the last five years").
Asked if he would "even bother" battle against billionaire real-estate tycoon Trump, 69, in a presidential race, Obama said: "I would've enjoyed campaigning against Trump. That would've been fun."
GQ asked Obama which character Trump would be in the award-winning fantasy television series "Game of Thrones."
"Uh... I don't think... I don't think any of them rise to that level," Obama said.
Trump's bombastic run for the White House has seen him lob verbal missiles at his Republican rivals, Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton and Obama, to name just a few.
"I think we have a president who just doesn't know what he's doing," Trump said earlier this month of Obama's policy on war-torn Syria.
Obama said he will "help" President-elect Trump with any
advice, counsel, information that he can so that the billionaire tycoon, once he is sworn in, can make a decision.
"Between now and then, these are decisions that I have to make based on the consultations that I have with our military and the people who have been working this every single day," he said.
Obama said Trump is still in transition mode from campaign to governance.
"I think he hasn't gotten his whole team together yet. He still has campaign spokespersons sort of filling in and appearing on cable shows. And there is just a whole different attitude and vibe when you're not in power as when you are in power," he said.
"So rather than me sort of characterise the appropriateness or inappropriateness of what he is doing at the moment, I think what we have to see is how will the President-elect operate and how will his team operate when they've been fully briefed on all these issues. They have their hands on all the levers of government. They have got to start making decisions," he asserted.
One way that Trump can approach this that would be unifying is to say that we welcome a bipartisan independent process that gives American people an assurance not only that votes are counted properly, that the elections are fair and free, but that they have learned lessons about how internet propaganda from foreign countries can be released into the political bloodstream and that they have got strategies to deal with it for the future, he said.
"The more this can be non-partisan, the better served the American people are going to be, which is why I made the point earlier and I'm going to keep on repeating this point, our vulnerability to Russia or any other foreign power is directly related to how divided, partisan, dysfunctional our political process is.That's the thing that makes us vulnerable," he said.
"If fake news that's being released by some foreign government is almost identical to reports that are being issued through partisan news venues, then it's not surprising that that foreign propaganda will have a greater effect. It doesn't seem that far-fetched compared to some of the other stuff that folks are hearing from domestic propagandists," Obama said.
"If we want to really reduce foreign influence on our elections, then we had (to) better think about how to make sure that our political process, our political dialogue is stronger than it has been," Obama said.
