Trump: Obama throwing up roadblocks to transition

Associated Press

PALM BEACH, Fla.

President-elect Donald Trump accused President Barack Obama on Wednesday of throwing up “inflammatory” roadblocks during the transition of power and his administration of treating Israel with “total disdain,” further straining the veneer of civility between the incoming and outgoing leaders.

Although Trump didn’t detail his complaints in his morning broadsides on Twitter, the president-elect has made it clear that it didn’t sit well with him when Obama recently boasted that he would have won the election if he’d been running. Trump’s largely respectful tone about Obama since the election evaporated in his latest tweets.

“Doing my best to disregard the many inflammatory President O statements and roadblocks,” Trump tweeted. “Thought it was going to be a smooth transition – NOT!”

Trump also took direct issue with the Obama administration’s decision to let a U.N. Security Council resolution critical of Israel pass.

“We cannot continue to let Israel be treated with such total disdain and disrespect,” he said in a two-part tweet. “They used to have a great friend in the U.S., but ... not anymore. The beginning of the end was the horrible Iran deal, and now this [U.N.]! Stay strong Israel, January 20th is fast approaching!”

Trump’s newly appointed press secretary, Sean Spicer, played down tensions between Trump and Obama.

“As the inauguration gets closer, both the current president and the team have been very generous with their time as far as the actual transition, the actual mechanics of the transition have gone and I expect them to continue to speak fairly regularly,” Spicer said during the daily transition briefing, though he could not say exactly how often the two have spoken.

Still, he said, Trump intends “to bring change to this country starting on Day 1.”

A dispute erupted Monday between Obama and Trump, spurred by Obama’s hypothetical musings that had he run again, he would have been victorious. Obama suggested he still holds enough sway over the coalition of voters who elected him twice to get them to vote for him once again. Trump’s response to that was “NO WAY!”

On Tuesday, Trump tweeted: “President Obama campaigned hard [and personally] in very important swing states, and lost. The voters wanted to MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”

Obama swept most key swing states in his two bids for the White House, but Trump’s Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, fell short.

Trump also had meetings with a number of medical executives, likely for discussions about Obama’s signature heath care plan, which Trump has called a “total disaster.”

They include Mayo Clinic chief executive John Noseworthy; the head of Johns Hopkins medical center, Paul Rothman; the head of the Cleveland Clinic, Toby Cosgrove; and Partners Healthcare chief executive David Torchiana. Spicer said Trump would also discuss Obamacare in a meeting with former Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson.

Trump hammered rival Hillary Clinton during the presidential campaign for failing to prevent the attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya, when she was secretary of state. Soon he’ll be the one responsible for protecting America’s diplomats, but he’s offered little insight into how he’ll do that.

After the 2012 Benghazi attack, Congress boosted spending on security to protect the tens of thousands of Americans and foreign staff that make up the U.S. diplomatic service. Security experts and career diplomats say there have been improvements, but that significant shortfalls remain.

Last week’s assassination of Russia’s ambassador to Turkey, Andrei Karlov, was a chilling reminder that diplomats are increasingly exposed to threats, even in countries that are typically not regarded as hardship posts. The assassin shouted, “Don’t forget Aleppo,” apparently referring to Russia’s military engagement in Syria.

It’s not clear whether having a brashly outspoken figure such asa Trump in the White House will compound diplomatic security challenges. The foreign policy of Trump and his choice for secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, remains somewhat of an enigma.