Obama expressed his concern, noting that there is a need to compromise, citing the Affordable Care Act as something that he said signified progress even though it did not achieve all of his aspirations for US health care.
“One of the things I do worry about sometimes among progressives in the United States —maybe it’s true here as well — is a certain kind of rigidity where we say, ‘Uh, I’m sorry, this is how it’s going to be,’ and then we start sometimes creating what’s called a ‘circular firing squad,’ where you start shooting at your allies because one of them has strayed from purity on the issues. And when that happens, typically the overall effort and movement weakens,” he said.
Obama noted that the structure of democracies requires one “to take into account people who don’t agree with you and that by definition means you’re not going to get 100 percent of what you want.”
Obama’s comments came in the midst of the scandal surrounding his former vice president Joe Biden who has been accused of inappropriately touching women throughout his political career. Last Friday Biden refused to apologise for any of his previous actions, claiming that he was not being “disrespectful.”