Barack Obama: “Decisions about awards of Federal financial assistance must be free from political interference or even the appearance…”

People need to “rediscover what’s the story we tell about how we’re going to live together, and see each other, and recognise each other, and disagree, and yet, still care for each other”.

The fact that any president, or any administration, is willing to engage in such transparent efforts to intimidate someone should outrage all Americans, regardless of how they feel about Congresswoman Omar’s political views.

If I had a blame pie for why politics is so polarised and why we're seeing a rise of populism in many places, it's because of that information that is going into our brains every day.

I’m going to insist that we can do better than we’re doing right now.