Obama: ‘You Don’t Make Change Through Slogans’

Speaking at an OFA event, President Obama urged his activists to support his Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal, and challenged critics of his plan.

Liberal critics of his deal, he suggested, were merely opposing his idea without considering the facts of what it would do to help the economy.

“If I didn’t think this was the right thing to do for working families, I would not be doing it,” he said, urging activists to remember his record on issues that mattered to working families.

Obama urged his supporters consider the facts, not just statements from the liberal critics of his plan – even at one point comparing them to conservative critics of Obamacare.

Part of his job, he explained, was to work for change with actual political deals.

“You don’t make change through slogans, you don’t make change by ignoring realities. Somethings you do things that are tough but the right thing to do to prepare us for the future,” he said as the crowd applauded.

“Look at the facts,” he urged. “Don’t just throw a bunch of stuff out there to see if it sticks.”

Obama admitted that “every once in a while there’s some things that aren’t as popular with Democrats” but added that trade deals like the one he was proposing “still need to be done, because they are the right thing to do.”