Obama: Separation of Powers ‘Very Frustrating Sometimes for the President’

Republicans ‘are glad that there is the distribution of powers because they imagine that I’d have turned the United States into Cuba’

BARACK OBAMA: “I also think that one of the great advantages of the United States system, even though it is very frustrating sometimes for the president is that power is distributed across a lot of different institutions - it’s what we call separation of powers and centralization ... The advantage is that even if we end up with someone that I don’t consider a great president, there is a limit to  some of the damage that they can do because — and I am sure Republicans feel that about me.  They are glad that there is the distribution of powers because they imagine that I’d have turned the United States into Cuba I suppose.  They tend to exaggerate a little bit on  how I see the world. But that’s why I think the United States has been stable.”

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