As President Barack Obama prepares to finish his final days as the nation’s commander in chief, social and political analysts around the world are offering thoughts on the outgoing leader’s legacy.
On Monday evening, Montel Williams joined Erin Burnett with his perspective on Obama’s work in the White House, in particular his role in curbing rising violence in Chicago.
“It’s really strange … only Obama is held responsible for the city of his lineage,” said Williams, a longtime television talk show host. “Right now we’re looking at Chicago, and we’re going to hold him accountable for one city, when we recognize that the nation was held hostage by a Congress that said from his first day, he was going to fail.”
Noting that Obama pledged to personally attend to the “the plight of young black men in America,” the CNN host asked her guest if America’s 44th president — as some have suggested — skirted, and ran away from, one of his premier promises.
“He ran right into leading the nation,” Williams said. “He stood up before the country and he said, ‘I do solemnly swear and affirm that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic, and I do so for all Americans.’ Not just Chicago, not just black Americans.”
Obama is down to his final 11 days in office, and is set to make his final official address, in Chicago, on Tuesday.
