In Farewell, Obama Sets Red Lines That Would Pull Him Back Into Fray

When President Obama arrived in office eight years ago, the departing President George W. Bush essentially withdrew from public life, declaring that his successor “deserves my silence.” It was an approach that Mr. Obama greatly appreciated but does not intend to follow.

At the final news conference of his presidency, Mr. Obama made clear on Wednesday that he finds some ideas advanced by President-elect Donald J. Trump so alarming that he laid out markers that would draw him back into the fray.

“There’s a difference between that normal functioning of politics and certain issues or certain moments where I think our core values may be at stake,” Mr. Obama told reporters in the White House briefing room.

Mr. Obama continued: “I put in that category if I saw systematic discrimination being ratified in some fashion. I put in that category explicit or functional obstacles to people being able to vote, to exercise their franchise. I’d put in that category institutional efforts to silence dissent or the press. And for me at least, I would put in that category efforts to round up kids who have grown up here and for all practical purposes are American kids, and send them someplace else, when they love this country.”

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