Here is the transcript and video of Barack Obama’s press conference in which he discusses Reverend Jeremiah Wright. The big press conference took place on April 29th, 2008. The comments were directed at Jeremiah Wright’s recent emergence to “defend himself” from criticism. Wright has done enormous damage to the Obama campaign.

In the press conference, Obama takes a 90 degree turn on his former pastor. No more the eccentric “uncle,” Jeremiah Wright was cast as a pariah by Obama. This was a necessary political move. Now the question becomes, will the public buy it? Or will the public continue to question how Obama is influenced by a 20-year relationship with an anti-American pastor he recently described as his spiritual mentor.

Obama has been slipping in the polls this week and needs Wright out of the picture. Yes, he will still win the primary contest with Hillary (well, probably), but Reverend Wright is doing enormous damage to his general election chances against John McCain.

Press conference video and transcript below.


Obama Press Conference Video (Jeremiah Wright)




Transcript:
Obama: I have spent my entire adult life trying to bridge the gap between different kinds of people, that’s in my DNA, trying to promote mutual understanding, to insist that we all share common hopes and common dreams as Americans and as human beings. That’s who I am. That’s what I believe. That’s what this campaign has been about. Yesterday we saw a very different vision of America.

I am outraged by the comments that were made and saddened over the spectacle that we saw yesterday. I have been a member of Trinity United Church of Christ since 1992. I’ve known Reverend Wright for almost 20 yrs. The person I saw yesterday was not the person that I met 20 yrs ago. His comments were not only divisive and destructive, but I believe that they end up giving comfort to those who prey on hate and I believe that they do not portray accurately the perspective of the Black Church. They certainly don’t portray accurately my values and beliefs and if Reverend Wright thinks that’s ‘political posturing,’ as he put it, then he doesn’t know me very well and based on his remarks yesterday, well I may not know him as well as I thought either.

Now I have already denounced the comments that had appeared in those previous sermons, as I said I had not heard them before and I gave him the benefit of the doubt in my speech in Philadelphia explaining that he has done enormous good in the Church. He’s built a wonderful congregation, the people of trinity are wonderful people and what attracted me has always been their ministry’s reach beyond the church walls. But when he states and then amplifies such ridiculous propositions such as the U.S. government somehow being involved in AIDS.

When he suggests that Minister Farrakhan somehow represents one of the greatest voices of the 20th and 21st century. When he equates the U.S. war time efforts with terrorism, then there are no excuses. They offend me, they rightly offend all Americans and they should be denounced, and that’s what I am doing very clearly and unequivocally here today.

Let me just close by saying this. We started this campaign with the idea that the problems that we face as a country are too great to continue to be divided. That in fact all across American people are hungry to get out of the old, divisive politics of the past. I have spoken and written about the need for us to recognize each other as Americans regardless of race or religion or region of the country, that the only way we can deal with critical issues like energy and health care and education and the war on terrorism, is if we are joined together. And the reason our campaign has been so successful is because we had moved beyond these old arguments. What we saw yesterday, out of Reverend Wright, was a resurfacing and, I believe, an exploitation of those old divisions. Whatever his intentions, that was the result.

It is antithetical to our campaign, it is antithetical to what I am about, is not what I think Americans stand for, and I want to be very clear that moving forward, Reverend Wright does not speak for me, he does not speak for our campaign. I cannot prevent him from continuing to make these outrageous remarks, but what I do want to be clear about as well as all of you and the American people, is that when I say I find these comments appalling, I mean it. It contradicts everything I am about and who I am. And anybody who has worked with me, who knows my life, who has read my books, who has seen what this campaign’s about, I think will understand that it is completely opposed to what I stand for and where I want to take this country.

Last point, I am particularly distressed that this has caused such a distraction from what this campaign should be about, which is the American people. Their situation is getting worse. And this campaign has never been about me, it’s never been about Senator Clinton, or John McCain, it’s not about Reverend Wright. People want some help in stabilizing lives and securing a better future for themselves and their children.

And that’s what we should be talking about and the fact that Reverend Wright would think that somehow it was appropriate to command the stage for 3 or 4 consecutive days in the midst of this major debate is something that not only makes me angry but also saddens me.

Question and Answer

Obama: Yes. I have not. I have not seen the transcript. What I hear was that he had given a performance, and I thought at the time that it would be sufficient to reiterate what I said in Philadelphia. Upon watching it what became clear to me was that it was more than—it was more than just him defending himself. What became clear to me was that he was presenting a world view that contradicts who I am and what I stand for. What I think particularly angered me was his suggestion somehow that my previous denunciation of his remarks were somehow political posturing. Anybody who knows me, and anybody who knows what Im about knows that that I am about trying to bridge gaps and that I see that commonality in all people and so when I start hearing comments about conspiracy theories and AIDS, and suggestions that somehow Minister Farrakhan has been a great voice in the 20th century, then that goes directly at who I am and what I believe this country needs.

Obama: Well look, as I said before, the person I saw yesterday was not the person that I have come to know for over 20 yrs. I understand that I think he was pained and angered from what had happened previously during the first stage of this controversy. I think he felt vilified and attacked, and I understand that he wanted to defend himself, but I understand that you know he’s gone though difficult times of late, and that he’s leaving his ministry after many years and so you know that may account for the change, but the insensitivity and the outrageousness of his statements and his performance in the Q and A period yesterday I think shocked me, it surprised me, as I said before, this is an individual who’s built a very fine church, and a church that is well respected throughout Chicago, during the course of me attending that church I had not heard those kinds of statements being made, or those kinds of views being prompted and I did not vet my pastor. Before I decided to run for the presidency, I was a member of the church so I think what it says is that I had not, I did not run though, run my pastor thought the paces, or review every one of the sermons he had made over the last 30 yrs, but I don’t think that anybody could attribute those ideas to me.

Obama: You know that’s something that you guys will have to figure out and obviously we’ve got elections in 4 or 5 days. So we’ll find out, you know what impact it has. But ultimately I think that the American people know that we have to do better than how we’re doing right now. I think that they believe in the ideas of this campaign. I think they are convinced that special interests have dominated Washington too long. I think they are convinced that we’ve got to get beyond some of the same political games that we’ve been playing. I think they believe we need to speak honestly and truthfully about how we’re gonna solve issues like energy or health care, and I believe that this campaign has inspired a lot of people. And that’s part of what, going back to what you asked Mike about why I feel so strongly about this today, after seeing Reverend Wright’s performance, I felt as if there was a complete disregard for what the American people are going through and the need for them to rally together to solve these problems. You know now is the time for us to not to get distracted, now is the time for us to pull tighter, and that’s what we’ve been doing in this campaign, and you know there was a sense that that did not matter to Reverend Wright, what mattered was him commanding center stage.

Obama: Well, the, uh, I want to, to use this press conference to make people absolutely clear that obviously whatever relationship I had with Reverend Wright has changed as a consequence of this.

I don’t think that he showed much concern for me. I don’t—more importantly—I don’t think he showed much concern for what we are trying to do in this campaign and what we’re trying to do for the American people and with the American people. And obviously he is free to speak out on the issues that are of concern to him and he can do it in any ways that he wants.

But I feel very strongly that look, I want to make absolutely clear that I do not subscribe to the views that he expressed. I believe they are wrong. I think they are destructive and to the extent that he continues to speak out, I do not expect those views to be attributed to me.

Obama: Well, you know, the new pastor, the young pastor Reverend Otis Moss is a wonderful young pastor and as I said I still very much value the Trinity community. I’ll be honest, this obviously has put strains on that relation, not because of the member or because of Reverend Moss, but because this has become such a spectacle.
And you know when I go to church it’s not for spectacle, it’s to pray and to find a stronger sense of faith. It’s not to posture politically. It’s not to, you know, it’s not to hear things that violate my core beliefs and so you kow and I certainly don’t want to provide a distraction to those who are worshipping at Trinity. As of this point I’m a member. I haven’t had a discussion with Reverend Moss about it so I can’t tell you how he’s reacting and how he’s responding.

Obama: Look the, I mean, I dont think that it’s that hard to figure out from if it was just a political perspective. My reaction has more to do with what I want this campaign to be about and who I am. And I want to make certain that people understand who I am. In some ways what Reverend Wright said yesterday directly contradicts everything that I’ve done during my life. It contradicts how I was raised and the setting in which I was raised. It contradicts my decisions to pursue a career of public service. It contradicts the issues that I’ve worked on politically. It contradicts what I’ve said in my books. It contradicts what I said in my convention speech in 2004. It contradicts my announcement. It contradicts everything that I’ve been saying on this campaign trail, and what I tried to do in Philadelphia was to provide a context and to lift up some of the contradictions and complexities of race in America of which Reverend Wright is a part and we’re all a part. And try to make something constructive out of it. But there wasn’t anything constructive out of yesterday. All it was was a bunch of rants that that aren’t grounded in truth. And you know, I can’t construct something positive out of that. I can understand it, people do all sorts of things. And as I said before, I continue to believe that Reverend Wright has been a leader in the South Side. I think that the church he’s built is outstanding. I think that he has preached in the past some wonderful sermons. He provided valuable contributions to my family, but at a certain point if what somebody says contradicts what you believe so fundamentally and then he questions whether or not you believe it in front of the national press club then that’s enough. That’s a show of disrespect to me. It is also I think an insult to what we’ve been trying to do in this campaign.

Obama: Yea, no, she [Michelle Obama] was similarly angered.

Obama: First of all, in terms of liberation theology, I’m not a theologian. So I think to some theologians there might be some well worked out theory of what constitutes liberation theology versus non-liberation theology. I went to church and listened to sermons, and in the sermons that I heard—and this is true I think across the board in many black churches—there is an emphasis on the importance of social struggle, the importance of striving for equality and justice and fairness, a social gospel, so I think a lot of people would rather—rather than using a fancy word like that simply talk about preaching the social gospel. And that—there’s nothing particularly odd about that. Dr. King obviously was the most prominent example of that kind of preaching, but what I do think can happen and I didn’t see this as a member of the church, but I saw it yesterday, is when you start focusing so much on the plight of the historically oppressed that you lose sight of what we have in common that it overrides everything else, that we’re not concerned about the struggles of others because we’re looking at things only through a particular lens. Then it doesn’t describe properly what I believe in the power of faith to overcome, but also to bring people together.

Obama: I did not view the initial round of soundbites that triggered this controversy as an attack on the Black Church. I viewed it as a simplification of who he was, a caricature of who he was. And more than anything, something that piqued a lot of political interest. I didn’t see it as an attack on the Black Church. The only aspect of it that probably had to do specifically with the Black Church is the fact that some people were surprised when he was shouting. I mean that is just a Black Church tradition, and so I think some people interpreted that somehow as ‘wow he’s really hollerin’ and black preachers holler and whoop. So that I think showed sort of a cultural gap in America. You know the sad thing is that although the sound bites as I’ve stated I think created a caricature of him, and when he was in that Moyers interview, even though there were some things that continued to be offensive, at least there was some sense of rounding out the edges. Yesterday I think he caricatured himself, and that was as I said, that made me angry but also made me sad.

Obama: You know, I tried to talk to him before the speech in Philadelphia, wasn’t able to reach him because he was on a cruise. He had just stepped down from the pulpit. When he got back I did speak to him. And the, you know, I prefer not to share sort of private conversations between me and him. I will talk to him, perhaps, some day in the future. But, what I can say is that I was very clear that what he had said in those particular snippets I found objectionable and offensive. And that the intention of the speech was to provide context for them, but not excuse them because I found them inexcusable, so.?

Obama: There’s been great damage. It may have been unintentional on his part, but you know I do not see that relationship being the same after this. Now, to some degree, you know, I know one thing that was true was that he was never my quote unquote spiritual adviser. He was never my spiritual mentor; he was, he was my pastor. And so to some extent, how you know the press characterized that relationship, I think, wasn’t accurate. But he was somebody who was my pastor and married Michelle and I and baptized my children and prayed with us at, when we announced this race—and so, you know, I’m disappointed.