Obama explains what scares him about a Donald Trump presidency

U.S. President Barack Obama criticized Donald Trump Wednesday saying he “is somebody who likes attention and maybe surprised himself that he got this far.”

Obama went on to say that he finds the idea of a “president who doesn’t know their stuff” to be “frightening.”

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In response to a question on whether Obama would find “the possibility of Trump having access to nuclear codes” frightening, the president – without saying Trump’s name – dished out some harsh criticism.

“Set aside the nuclear codes, what I think is scary is a president who doesn’t know their stuff and doesn’t seem to have an interest in learning what they don’t know,” Obama said on NBC’s “Today Show” in a taped interview that aired Wednesday.

Tweet This Click to share quote on Twitter: "Set aside the nuclear codes, what I think is scary is a president who doesn't know their stuff and doesn't seem to have an interest in learning what they don't know," Obama said on NBC's "Today Show" in a taped interview that aired Wednesday.

“I think if you listen to any press conference he’s given, or listen to any of those debates, basic knowledge about the world or what a nuclear triad is or where various countries are or, you know, the difference between Sunni and Shia in the Muslim world those are things that he doesn’t know and hasn’t seemed to spend a lot of time trying to find out about.”

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The president’s comments to NBC come just hours before he’s scheduled to speak at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia.

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Hillary Clinton was officially made the Democratic nominee for president Tuesday and will take on Donald Trump in the general election in November.

Despite Obama’s clear support for Clinton, he stopped short of saying Trump would lose in November.

“Anything is possible,” Obama said. “It is the nature of democracy. But until those votes are cast and until the American people have their say, we don’t know.”

– With files from The Associated Press