Obama slams Mourdock on Leno: "Rape is rape"

"I don’t know how these guys come up with these ideas," Obama told Jay Leno

Published October 25, 2012 1:45PM (EDT)

         (AP/Paul Drinkwater)
(AP/Paul Drinkwater)

President Obama appeared on "The Tonight Show," and addressed Richard Mourdock's comments that pregnancy from  rape "is something that God intended to happen."

“I don’t know how these guys come up with these ideas,” Obama told Jay Leno. “Let me make a very simple proposition. Rape is rape. It is a crime. And so these various distinctions about rape don’t make too much sense to me, don’t make any sense to me. The second thing this underscores, though, is this is exactly why you don’t want a bunch of politicians, mostly male, making decisions about women’s healthcare decisions.”

On Donald Trump, Obama joked that they knew each other growing up in Kenya: “We had constant run-ins on the soccer field. He wasn’t very good, resented it. When we finally moved to America, I thought it would be over.”


By Jillian Rayfield

Jillian Rayfield is an Assistant News Editor for Salon, focusing on politics. Follow her on Twitter at @jillrayfield or email her at jrayfield@salon.com.

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Related Topics ------------------------------------------

2012 Elections Barack Obama Jay Leno Rape Richard Mourdock