U.S. society is
uncomfortable with powerful women and that is why the United States has not yet
elected a woman president, President Barack Obama said on Sunday.
Obama, who is eager
to see fellow Democrat Hillary Clinton succeed him in office, told a fundraiser
for her in New York that the election between his former secretary of state and
Republican businessman Donald Trump should not be close.
However, political
polarization in the country would make it tight, he said.
The first
African-American U.S. president then told the group of donors why he thought a
woman had never held the office.
"There's a
reason why we haven't had a woman president," he said. "We as a
society still grapple with what it means to see powerful women. And it still
troubles us in a lot of ways, unfairly. And that expresses itself in all sorts
of ways."
Obama has often
spoken about the role of strong women in his life, including his mother,
grandmother, wife and daughters.
Polls have tightened
between Clinton, a former U.S. senator and first lady, and Trump, a real-estate
tycoon.
"This should
not be a close election, but it will be," Obama said. "And the reason
it will be is not because of Hillary's flaws, but rather because, structurally,
we've become a very polarized society," he said.
The president has
not hidden his disdain for Trump, who was one of the leaders of the movement
that questioned whether Obama was born in the United States. Trump conceded on
Friday that Obama was U.S. born.
Obama told the
donors that Trump was unlike the two candidates he faced in the 2008 and 2012
general elections.
"When I ran
against John McCain, we had deep differences, but I couldn't say that he was
not qualified to be president of the United States," Obama said of his
2008 opponent.
"I couldn't say
that electing Mitt Romney would be an unmitigated disaster. This guy (Trump) is
not qualified to be president." Reuters
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