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“Your behavior around the man will matter. It does matter. You can’t allow Karen Pence to present as a more steadfast defender of democracy, a more courageous critic of Trump, than yourselves,” he said. “Your outdated impulse to prioritize good relationships with your conservative colleagues at all costs has got to end. Recall, many of these men and women have spent years valorizing a violent mob that sought to kill you. Why does Karen Pence remember that but you don’t?”
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“But laughing at Trump’s jokes on camera? It was risky. Kind of cringy. Optics like this are things that Democrats have to consider going forward,” he said, adding that Democratic voters “may feel lied to if they appear to embrace him now.”
Lemon said he believed that Obama “was just doing his duty” brushing shoulders with Trump as a member of the presidential club attending a state funeral.
He went on:
“You can’t just memory hole comparing someone to Hitler,” he added.
Obama said in October that a second Trump presidency would be “dangerous” and told supporters, “In politics, a good rule of thumb is: Don’t say you want to do anything like Hitler.”
He called on Democrats to keep that in mind ahead of Trump’s inauguration and over the next four years.
