2016 July 27^th

President Obama held a press conference with Mexico’s President Enrique Pena Nieto yesterday. The President provided some relevant facts about our relationship with Mexico and about our situation here at home. These facts nicely cut through the bluster we have lately heard from The Republican’s chief bluster boy. I quote the President below:

“Mexico is our third-largest trading partner. We sell more to Mexico than we do to China, India, and Russia combined. Every year, millions of tourists and businesspeople and friends and family cross our border legally. Every day, $1.5 billion in trade and investment crosses our border -- and that's trade that supports over a million jobs right here in the United States. On a whole host of issues, from our shared security to climate change, Mexico is a critical partner and is critically important to our own well-being. We’re not just strategic and economic partners, we’re also neighbors, and we're friends, and we're family -- including millions of Americans that are connected to Mexico by ties of culture and of language.

A reporter challenged the two Presidents to respond to the Republican presidential nominee who called, once again, for a wall. Isn't Trump's success an indictment of your Presidency, he asked Obama. And how do you partner with a person that you’ve previously compared to Hitler and Mussolini, he asked Peña Nieto. Here is the President’s reply:

“. . . this idea that America is somehow on the verge of collapse, this vision of violence and chaos everywhere, doesn’t really jibe with the experience of most people. I mean, I hope people, the next morning, walked outside and birds were chirping and the sun was out, and this afternoon people will be watching their kids play in sports teams and go to the swimming pool, and folks are going to work and getting ready for the weekend.  And, in particular, I think it is important just to be absolutely clear here that some of the fears that were expressed throughout the week just don’t jibe with the facts.  So let’s take two specific examples. When it comes to crime, the violent crime rate in America has been lower during my presidency than any time in the last three, four decades. And although it is true that we’ve seen an uptick in murders and violent crime in some cities this year, the fact of the matter is, is that the murder rate today, the violence rate today is far lower than it was when Ronald Reagan was President -- and lower than when I took office. We’ve just gone through a tragic period where we saw both a tragedy in Minnesota and Baton Rouge, and then the insanity and the viciousness of people targeting police officers. And we are all heartbroken by that, and we're all troubled by how we can rebuild trust, support law enforcement and make sure that communities feel that they are being fairly policed. But the fact is that the rate of intentional killings of police officers is also significantly lower than it was when Ronald Reagan was President. Those are facts. That's the data. When it comes to immigration, I think Americans expect that our immigration process is orderly and it is legal.  And we have put unprecedented resources at our border.  Well, it turns out that the rate of illegal migration into the United States today is lower by two-thirds than it was when Ronald Reagan was President.  We have far fewer undocumented workers crossing the border today than we did in the ‘80s, or the ‘90s, or when George Bush was President. That's a fact. So the one thing that I think is important is -- obviously there are going to be different visions about where we should go as a country -- how we can provide jobs, how we can make sure that our kids are able to get the education they need to succeed in the 21st century, how do we deal with our budget, how do we make sure our tax system is fair, how do we deal with very real issues around growing inequality or wages that have not gone up as fast as we want, and the real pressures that a lot of families feel. But we're not going to make good decisions based on fears that don't have a basis in fact. And that, I think, is something that I hope all Americans pay attention to.  America is much less violent than it was 20, 30 years ago And immigration is much less a problem than it was not just 20, 30 years ago, but when I came in as President.  That doesn’t mean we have solved those problems, but those are facts. I think that covers just about everything -- oh, you had some question about my approval ratings being high and right track-wrong track.  I think if you look at almost every year, under every President over the last -- I don't know -- 20, 30 years, you're going to be hard pressed to find a year in which the majority of Americans thought we were on the right track.  Maybe because all the good things that are happening in America don't get reported on a lot. So I don't think that's actually unusual.  But I appreciate you bringing up the fact that my poll numbers are doing okay.” So that’s the word from the POTUS himself; unsurprisingly he said it far better than I could have paraphrased it. Think about it!