Kal Penn says former President Obama 'not a progressive' by 2025 lens

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Actor and former White Home aide Kal Penn claimed that "by a 2025 lens," former President Barack Obama was "not a progressive."

Penn, who labored for the Obama administration from 2009 to 2011, defended his former boss on the "Hasan Minhaj Does not Know" podcast Wednesday the place he celebrated Obama not being thought-about a progressive as an indication of "progress" working.

"You'll be able to't look again at 2009 with a 2025 lens and say this wasn't progressive sufficient," Penn mentioned. "And I'll inform you why, it's that, after all, by a 2025 lens, Obama was not a progressive. That is how you understand progress labored."

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Kal Penn beforehand labored as a White Home employees member beneath President Barack Obama. (RB/Bauer-Griffin/GC Photographs)

He continued, "It is a good factor. It is a good luxurious to have the ability to look again and be like that reasonable, that dude who droned individuals and did not get healthcare handed the way in which that we needed, that is an amazing means to have in 2025, as a result of it signifies that issues that he did get executed are reasonable by definition at present as a result of the needle was moved."

Penn denied that Obama may have been extra "radical" throughout his time period in workplace, arguing that it was tough given the restricted powers of the presidency.

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"The issue with this query is that the truth was he could not be wildly radical, proper? So even the Reasonably priced Care Act on the time, despite the fact that the preliminary level of it was really like a conservative mannequin, however even then he barely bought the Democratic votes to get it handed. And on reflection, we're like, 'that is all we bought?,'" Penn mentioned.

Kal Penn claimed former President Barack Obama could not afford to be "wildly radical" throughout his time in workplace. (Melina Mara/POOL/AFP through Getty Photographs)

Regardless of his protection of the previous president, Penn acknowledged that he was additionally "disillusioned" by the administration over sure points, such because the failure to shut Guantánamo Bay.

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"Individuals have a proper to be disillusioned. Individuals have a proper to have a good time," Penn mentioned.

Obama has criticized the progressive wing in his social gathering for alienating voters, akin to younger males.

Former President Barack Obama has criticized "progressive" members of his social gathering previously. (Ethan Miller/Getty Photographs)

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"I'll say, as quote-unquote progressives, Democrats, progressive mother and father, enlightened ones, we have made that mistake generally by way of our rhetoric, the place it is like we're continually speaking about it, you understand, what is going on on with the boys as a substitute of what is proper with them," Obama mentioned in July.

Lindsay Kornick is an affiliate editor for Fox Information Digital. Story ideas might be despatched to lindsay.kornick@fox.com and on Twitter: @lmkornick.