Obama Says Press Intimidation, Efforts to ‘Silence Critics’ Are Not ‘Unique’ to One Party in America

Former president Barack Obama asserted that “anti-democratic sentiment” is not “unique to one party” during an interview with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour that is set to air in full at 10pm on Thursday night, though he did argue it is “most prominent” in the GOP.

Obama sat down with Amanpour for a special called “Obama & Amanpour: Will Democracy Win?” The interview was taped in Athens, Greece, the city credited as the birthplace of democracy.

In a candid answer to a question about potential democratic backsliding in the United States, Obama took aim at his partisan opponents in the Republican Party, but also acknowledged that there is “less tolerance for ideas that don’t suit us” across the political spectrum:

AMANPOUR: Well let’s ask about the creaky or not institutions in the United States, the spectacle of a former president being federally indicted. How is the rest of the world, the democratic world, maybe even the non-democratic world meant to interpret that indictment and indeed the fact that a federal indictee is running, is able to run for the highest office in the land, maybe even the world?

OBAMA: It’s less than ideal. But the fact that we have a former president who is having to answer to charges brought by prosecutors does uphold the basic notion that nobody is above the law. And the allegations will now be sorted out through a court process. And I think I’m more concerned when it comes to the United States with the fact that not just one particular individual is being accused of undermining existing laws, but that more broadly we’ve seen, whether it’s through the gerrymandering of districts, whether it’s trying to silence critics through changes in legislative process, whether it’s attempts to intimidate the press, a strand of anti-democratic sentiment that we’ve seen in the United States.

It’s something that is right now most prominent in the Republican Party, but I don’t think it’s something that is unique to one party. I think there is less tolerance for ideas that don’t suit us. And it’s sort of the habits of a free and open exchange of ideas, and the idea that we all agree to the rules of the game, and even if the outcomes aren’t always the ones we like, we still abide by those rules. I think that’s weakened since I left office, and we’re gonna need to strengthen them again.

Watch above via CNN.