Professor Smith: Obama's Remarks on Trump 'Unprecedented in Modern Times'

CNN -- Robert Smith, a professor of Political Science at San Francisco State University, said: “Obama’s remarks are unprecedented in modern times for sure.” Smith said the only parallel to Obama’s stance on Trump were warnings by President John Quincy Adams about his eventual successor Andrew Jackson, who was decried by the 1820s Eastern establishment as an uncouth outsider prone to cursing and womanizing. Although Obama will leave the White House on January 20, the implications of his interventions could linger much longer. Once a precedent is broken, it becomes easier for a future president to behave in the same way. With that in mind, Smith said that Obama’s remarks could be seen as unpresidential unless he sincerely believed that Trump was a danger to the nation. “I think he does, and, of course, he is not alone,” Smith said.