What I said was is that Ronald Reagan was a transformative political figure because he was able to get Democrats to vote against their economic interests to form a majority to push through their agenda, an agenda that I objected to.
Obama clarifies his comments about Ronald Reagan's influence in politics.
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There are no ifs, ands or buts about it, the central premise of our democratic system is that we have to be able to disagree and have sometimes really contentious debates without resorting to violence.
Those are all topics that we have to be able to discuss honestly and forthrightly, while we still insist that in that process of debate, we respect other people's right to say things that we profoundly disagree with.
There's been some confusion, I think, around this lately, and frankly, coming from the White House and some of the other positions of authority that suggest, even before we had determined who the perpetrator of this evil act was, that…
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