A political lifetime later, before a sea of
supporters at McCormick Place, Obama on
Tuesday delivered what is expected to be his
final formal address to the nation. His hair
was grayer, his tone more somber. And since
election night 2016, his message has been
aimed at rallying downcast supporters and
defending a legacy that his successor has
vowed to dismantle.
President Obama gives his farewell
address at McCormick Place in
Chicago on Jan. 10, 2017.
Nam Y. Huh, AP
In his speech, he recited a litany of his
proudest achievements, among them the
economic recovery from the Great Recession,
the diplomatic outreach to Cuba, the nuclear
accord with Iran, the death of Osama bin
Laden, the extension of health care coverage
to 20 million people and more.
"That's what we did," he said to cheers.
"That's what you did. You were the change.
Because of you, by almost every measure,
America is a stronger, better place than it
was when we started."
Obama's farewell address looks back on
career in activism
Still, while Obama is finishing his term with a
healthy approval rating — ahead of President-
elect Donald Trump's standing by double
digits in a Quinnipiac University Poll released
Tuesday — the election of a political nemesis
as his successor poses grave risks to what
he leaves behind on everything from health
care to climate change.
The situation includes this ironic twist:
Trump initially built a political following by
questioning Obama's birthplace and the
legitimacy of his presidency. Now, as he
prepares to turn over the White House to
Trump, Obama finds himself defending the
legitimacy of Trump's presidency, insisting to
skeptics that the election of this new
commander in chief doesn't represent an
apocalypse that threatens American
democracy.
He quieted boos from the audience when he
noted that a new administration would over
in 10 days, lauding "the peaceful transfer of
power from one freely elected president to the
next."
When the crowd chanted "Four more years!"
to drown out a protester, he said with a
smile, "I can't do that."
Obama was speaking amid a new and
potentially explosive controversy involving
Trump. CNN first reported, and USA TODAY
and other news outlets confirmed,
that Obama and Trump last week were given
classified documents that included unverified
allegations from Russian operatives who
claimed to have compromising personal and
financial information about Trump. The
president-elect denounced the report in a
tweet, deriding it as "#fakenews."
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