Former US President Barack Obama is taking aim at the “utter loss of shame among political leaders when they’re caught in a lie and they just double down and lie some more.”
Obama’s spirited speech in South Africa is his highest-profile address since leaving office. He is marking the 100th anniversary of anti-apartheid leader Nelson Mandela’s birth and giving an impassioned defense of the values held by the Nobel Peace Prize winner.
While not directly mentioning his successor, President Donald Trump, Obama says these days “people just make stuff up” in politics and no longer show embarrassment when being caught out.
He warns that the denial of facts could be the undoing of democracy.
Obama says politicians pushing “politics of fear, resentment, [and] retrenchment” are on the move “at a pace unimaginable just a few years ago.”
But he reminds the audience of thousands that “we’ve been through darker times. We’ve been through lower valleys.”
— AP
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