Barack Obama warns Donald Trump to tread carefully over Israel

Barack Obama says Donald Trump deserves space to pursue agenda, but should tread carefully on such issues as Israel.

Barack Obama speaks during his final presidential news conference. AP.

President Barack Obama on Wednesday said President-elect Donald Trump deserves space to pursue his agenda, while also suggesting his successor tread carefully on such volatile issues as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Mr. Obama, in the final scheduled press conference of his presidency, said it was appropriate for President-elect Donald Trump and his team “to go forward with his vision and his values.” But he said the White House has warned the Trump transition team that a planned move of the US Embassy in Israel could increase volatility in the Middle East.

Mr. Trump’s team has said moving the US Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv is a priority, describing a step that would represent a major reversal of longstanding U.S. policy. Both Israel and the Palestinians have claims to the contested city.

“Part of what we’ve tried to indicate to the incoming team in our transition process, is pay attention to this because this is volatile stuff. People feel deeply and passionately about this,” Mr. Obama said. “The actions that we take have enormous consequences and ramifications. … You don’t want to do things off the cuff when it comes to an issue this volatile.”

Mr Obama also explained his decision to allow to pass a United Nations Security Council resolution saying Israel’s construction of settlements is an impediment to a peace agreement. He said the resolution last month, which broke with longstanding tradition, was intended to be “a wake-up call that this moment may be passing.”

Separately, Mr. Obama said the Kremlin has returned to a more adversarial relationship with the U.S. under Russian President Vladimir Putin, saying he has attempted to “bully” smaller countries like Ukraine.

Russia “returned to an adversarial spirit that I think existed during the Cold War has made the relationship more difficult and it was hammered home when Russia went into Crimea and portions of Ukraine.”

Speaking of the transition and of policy more broadly, Mr. Obama said he had counselled Mr. Trump to build up a staff that he can trust to prepare him for difficult decisions, saying even that junior staffers can play integral roles in helping things run smoothly and preparing a president for different situations.

The president also predicted there would likely be “not enormous overlap” between his approach and that of Mr. Trump. But he said that some of the things Mr. Trump has spoken about, including expanding access to health care and boosting job growth, are issues that he has also tried to pursue.

Mr. Obama declined to weigh in on the more than 50 House Democrats who won’t be attending Mr. Trump’s Friday inauguration, saying “All I know is I’m going to be there.”

The Wall St Journal

Obama defends Manning decision

Earlier, Mr Obama firmly defended his decision to cut nearly three decades off convicted leaker Chelsea Manning’s prison term, arguing that the former Army intelligence analyst had served a “tough prison sentence” already.

Mr Obama said he granted clemency to Ms Manning because she had gone to trial, taken responsibility for her crime and received a sentence that was harsher than other leaders have received. He emphasised that he had merely commuted her sentence, not granted a pardon, which would have symbolically forgiven her for the crime.

“I feel very comfortable that justice has been served,” Mr Obama said.

Ms Manning was convicted in 2013 of violating the Espionage Act and other crimes for leaking more than 700,000 classified documents while working as an intelligence analyst in Baghdad. Formerly known as Bradley Manning, she declared as transgender after being sentenced to 35 years in prison. She had served more than six years before Mr Obama commuted her sentence on Tuesday, with a release date set for May.

“The notion that the average person who was thinking about disclosing vital, classified information would think that it goes unpunished, I don’t think would get that impression from the sentence that Chelsea Manning has served,” Mr Obama said.

The President said he saw no contradiction in granting clemency to Ms Manning even as he warns about Russia’s hacking of the US presidential campaign, in which stolen emails were released publicly by WikiLeaks. He said he wasn’t motivated by WikiLeaks’ recent pledge on Twitter that founder Julian Assange would agree to extradition to the US if he commuted Ms Manning’s sentence. “I don’t pay much attention to Mr. Assange’s tweets, so that wasn’t a consideration,” the president said.

Mr Obama’s comments came as he prepares to exit the presidency after eight years marked by major victories on health care, the economy and climate change, along with disappointments over his inability to achieve his goals on immigration, gun control and closing the Guantánamo Bay prison. He also wound down wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but wrestled with other security threats posed by the Islamic State group and the Syria civil war he was unable to resolve. Even many of Mr Obama’s proudest achievements, like the “Obamacare” health care overhaul, stand to be rolled back or undermined by President-elect Donald Trump, a shadow that hangs over Mr Obama’s legacy as he leaves office.

The formal end comes on Friday when Mr Obama and Mr Trump will motorcade together to the Capitol for Mr Trump’s swearing-in before Mr Obama, then an ex-president, flies with his family to California for a vacation.

Mr Obama and his aides have said he plans to assume a low profile in the months after he leaves office, and to avoid commenting on politics on a daily basis unless Trump pursues policies he finds particularly offensive. He plans to write a book, raise money to develop his presidential library, and work on a Democratic initiative to prepare for the 2020 round of congressional redistricting.

Although Mr Obama had long intended to take one last round of questions before leaving office, White House officials said that in recent days, he had become intent on using the occasion to draw a symbolic contrast with Mr Trump on issues of accountability and press freedoms. Mr Trump’s team has said it’s considering changes to the traditional daily press briefing and to the location of news conferences, stoking concerns among journalists that their ability to cover the presidency may be scaled back.

Mr Obama alluded to those concerns in his opening remarks, noting the role the press plays in American democracy.

“It doesn’t work if we don’t have a well-informed citizenry, and you are the conduit,” Mr Obama said. He said he hoped the press would “continue with the same tenacity that you showed us, to do the hard work of getting to the bottom of stories.”

Mr Obama opted to hold his final news conference in the Brady Press Briefing Room, rather than in the East Room or another location, to help emphasise the point, officials said.

AFP