Obama During Final Foreign Trip: ‘I Still Don’t Feel Responsible’ For Trump

President Barack Obama kicked off his last offi­cial over­seas trip in Greece on Tuesday say­ing he does­n’t bear respon­si­bil­i­ty for Donald Trump, whose unortho­dox elec­tion vic­to­ry has left for­eign lead­ers skit­tish about the next administration.

Obama, when asked by NBC News about whether he feels respon­si­ble for the elec­tion of Trump — seen as a ref­er­en­dum on his last eight years in office — the pres­i­dent told reporters: “I still don’t feel respon­si­ble for what the pres­i­dent-elect says or does. But I do feel a respon­si­bil­i­ty as pres­i­dent of the United States to make sure that I facil­i­tate a good tran­si­tion and I present to him, as well as the American peo­ple, my best thinking.”

Related: Trump’s and Obama’s Views on Globalization Reflect Broader Gap

Obama acknowl­edged that the GOP nom­i­nee’s win was a way for Americans to “shake things up.” His poli­cies on glob­al­iza­tion and increas­ing inter­na­tion­al rela­tions run counter to Trump, who pep­pered his lan­guage on the cam­paign trail with “America first” rhetoric.

In a speech over the sum­mer, Trump crit­i­cized a “lead­er­ship class that wor­ships glob­al­ism over Americanism.”

Obama on Tuesday said pres­i­den­tial elec­tions can turn on a num­ber of fac­tors, includ­ing can­di­date per­son­al­i­ties as well as a cam­paign’s effec­tive­ness, and Trump’s rhetoric “tapped into that par­tic­u­lar strain with­in the Republican Party” to win over vot­ers. Read more here : http://​www​.nbc​news​.com/​n​e​w​s​/​w​o​r​l​d​/​o​b​a​m​a​-​i​-​s​t​i​l​l​-​d​o​n​-​t​-​f​e​e​l​-​r​e​s​p​o​n​s​i​b​l​e​-​t​r​u​m​p​-​s​-​w​i​n​-​n​6​8​4​0​0​1​?​c​i​d​=​p​a​r​-​t​w​i​t​t​e​r​-​f​e​e​d​_​2​0​1​6​1​1​1​5​&​u​t​m​_​c​o​n​t​e​n​t​=​b​u​f​f​e​r​a​c​0​6​4​&​u​t​m​_​m​e​d​i​u​m​=​s​o​c​i​a​l​&​u​t​m​_​s​o​u​r​c​e​=​f​a​c​e​b​o​o​k​.​c​o​m​&​u​t​m​_​c​a​m​p​a​i​g​n​=​b​u​f​fer