Obama said that he was glad the two police officers, one wounded in the face and the other in the shoulder, would survive and described the shooters as “outliers in a peaceful social movement.” “I think that what had been happening in Ferguson was oppressive and objectionable and was worthy of protest, but there was no excuse for criminal acts,” Obama said on the ABC show. “And whoever fired those shots shouldn’t detract from the issue — they’re criminals, they need to be arrested.”
The wounded officers were discharged earlier on March 12. A Department of Justice report has stated that the city’s police harbored a racial bias and sought to make money from excessive stops and fines.
Besides these serious issues, the March 12 show also had many lighter moments. President Obama was put through Kiimmel’s “Mean Tweets” segment, where celebrities have to read twitter messages criticizing them. One such tweet complained about the rise in the price of a 30-pack of Coors Light and added the familiar joke: “Thanks, Obama.”
Obama also discussed the many restrictions imposed on him because of security. He explained how he still uses a Blackberry, being unable to pick newer phones with recorders in them because of security issues. He also stated that he mostly emails and barely texts, and rarely composes his own tweets. “I can’t use phones with recorders in them. So a lot of the new fangled stuff, for security reasons, I don’t get,” he said.
When Kimmel asked him about HIllary Clinton’s email, Obama responded that he couldn’t divulge her id, and with tounge in cheek, said, “I don’t think she’d want you to have it, frankly”. Clinton, considered a 2016 presidential probable, has come under fire for using a private email account while she was working as a top US diplomat.
