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COMMENTARY PRESIDENT BARACK OBOMA Build The Vision: Obama: 'Most People Don’t Realize What This Judge Just Did To Trump' PLAY YOUTUBE VIDEO Original article: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dThRk__Ne28
Obama: 'Most People Don’t Realize What This Judge Just Did To Trump' Build The Vision Oct 15, 2025 361 subscribers ... 21,245 views ... 774 likes Judge Halts Trump's Firing of Federal Workers A federal judge has temporarily blocked the Trump administration from firing thousands of federal employees amidst the ongoing government shutdown. The judge ruled that the firings were causing irreparable harm and that the human cost was intolerable. Emotional Reaction: This news has been met with a mix of relief and hope from federal workers and their families who feared losing their livelihoods. There is also a sense of vindication among those who view the administration's actions as an abuse of power, while supporters of the administration are expressing anger and frustration at the judicial intervention. Key Political Figures: • President Donald Trump • U.S. District Judge Susan Illston Disclaimer: This is an independent, fan-made channel not affiliated with Barrack Obama, his campaign, or any political organization. The videos are inspired by public speeches and verified news for educational and analytical purposes only. We use voiceover narration, storytelling, and dramatized reenactments to explain complex political news in a clear, emotional, and engaging way. All visuals and voices are independently produced and do not feature or represent Barrack Obama personally. Our goal is to present political developments that encourage civic understanding and discussion while maintaining respect for all public figures. We strive to amplify public information responsibly and follow fair use and journalistic integrity principles. How this content was made Altered or synthetic content Sound or visuals were significantly edited or digitally generated. Learn more Peter Burgess COMMENTARY When this was live-streamed on Tueasday evening October 21st there were over 3,000 people watching including myself ... small relative to the numbers that participated in the live protests in the United States the previous Saturday. Peter Burgess Transcript 0:00 Hello everybody. There's a headline today that I have to talk about. It says, 'Judge halts Trump's firing of federal workers. Uh, a federal judge has stepped in and temporarily blocked the administration from firing thousands of government employees in the middle of this shutdown.' The judge used a very specific phrase. She said the firings would cause irreparable harm and that the human cost was intolerable. I want you to just sit with those words. The human cost was intolerable. For most of us, that's uh a headline we might scroll past, but for thousands of families across this country, that headline is everything. It is a moment of reprieve. It is a breath they didn't know they'd be able to take. It's the difference between having a job tomorrow and having to figure out how to pay the bills with no income. This isn't about politics. This is about people. It's about our 1:04 neighbors, the men and women who inspect our food, who manage our national parks, who help our veterans. They have mortgages. They have kids who need braces. They have car payments. and their lives were about to be thrown into chaos. When a judge has to step in and remind a government about the human cost of its actions, it's a sign that we have a serious problem. It's a moment for all of us to stop and ask, how did we get here? Let's talk about that phrase, the judge used irreparable harm. And it sounds like legal language, but it's one of the most human ideas. There is irreparable harm isn't just about losing money. You can sometimes earn money back to irreparable harm is about the things you can't get 2:00 back. It's the single mom who has to choose between paying the rent and buying her child's asthma medication. It's the family that has to pull their kid out of college because the tuition payment is due and their paycheck is gone. It's the stress that settles over a home causing sleepless nights and quiet arguments born from fear. You can't repair that damage easily. It leaves a scar. This is what that judge was talking about. She was looking past the political fight in Washington and uh seeing the kitchen tables in Ohio, in Florida, in Colorado. She saw the real world consequences. A government shutdown is not a game. And threatening people's jobs to win that game is not leadership. Leadership is about preventing harm. It's about 3:03 understanding that your decisions have a ripple effect that touches countless lives. A better approach is to protect people from the fallout of political disagreements, not to use them as the primary weapon. And this ruling was a powerful statement that in America, people can't just be treated as collateral damage. their well-being matters. So, how does this happen? It happens when we lose perspective. It happens when winning a fight becomes more important than the people you are supposed to be fighting for. In a government shutdown, the basic functions of the country are held hostage to a political demand. And uh in this case, it was taken a step further. The threat of firing people was used to apply even more pressure. Think about that. It's like two people having a disagreement and one of them deciding to set the house on fire to get their bowl way. 4:04 Forgetting that other families live in the house, too. It doesn't solve the problem. It just creates more suffering. There is always always a better way. The better way is to negotiate. The better way is to compromise. The better way is to sit in a room for as long as it takes and hash out your differences without putting the livelihood of hundreds of thousands of innocent Americans on the line. I've been in those rooms. The discussions are tough. Nobody gets everything they want. But you find a way forward. You do it because you understand that your primary duty is to keep the country running. and to protect its citizens. You don't create a crisis to solve a disagreement. That's a failure of imagination and a failure of leadership. This moment 5:00 should be a lesson. We must demand more from our leaders. We must demand they solve problems without inflicting pain on the very people they were elected to serve. I want to focus for a moment on the person at the center of this decision, US District Judge Susan Ilston. In our system, we ask our judges to be independent, to be umpires who just call the balls and strikes based on the law and the constitution. We asked them to tune out the political noise and focus on the facts. And that is exactly what she did. It takes courage to do that. It takes courage to stand up and enforce the rules when emotions are running high. Her ruling wasn't a political statement for 6:03 one side or the other. It was a defense of the principle that there are limits to power in this country. No one is above the law and no one has the right to cause intolerable harm to our citizens. This is why our founders created three branches of government to check each other uh to balance each other to make sure that no one person could have all the power. Today we saw that system work as intended. A judge did her job. She upheld her oath and uh in doing so she provided a moment of hope. A moment that reminds us that our democracy is resilient. It is stronger than the daily political fights. It is built on a foundation of laws and principles that are designed to protect us. We should all be grateful for that. and for the 7:03 public servants like Judge Ilston who have the courage to defend it. So where do we stand now? The firings have been stopped but only for a little while. This ruling is a temporary fix. It's a pause button. It's not a solution. Uh the underlying disagreement that caused the shutdown is still there. The families who felt relief today know that the fear could come back tomorrow. This is a critical moment for our country. Uh the judge's order has given our leaders in Washington a chance to step back um take a breath and think about the path they are on. The question is, will they use this opportunity to find a real solution? Uh, or will they go right back to the same political battles using the same threats as soon as they can? The answer to that 8:04 question depends on you. It depends on all of us. Leaders in a democracy respond to the voices of the bo voices of the voices people. It's time to make our voices heard. Not with anger and insults, but with a clear firm demand for better, a demand for responsible leadership. Tell them to stop playing games with people's lives. Tell them to do their jobs and find a compromise. This is not about one political party. This is about our national character. Let's prove that our character is stronger than our divisions. Let's demand a government that works for 9:00 all of us. The story isn't over. What happens next is up to all of us. Now, I know some of you listening might feel differently. The original story mentioned that some folks were frustrated by the judge's decision and uh I understand that frustration. I truly do. For years, many Americans have been told that government is the problem. They feel that it's too big, too slow, or that it just doesn't listen to them. And you know what? Sometimes they're right. Government is not perfect because people are not perfect. But the anger and frustration you feel is valid. The problem is when that legitimate frustration is turned against the wrong people, it's not the scientist at the weather service 10:00 who is causing your problems. It's not the park ranger in Yellowstone or the clerk at the uh social security office. They are your fellow citizens. The better approach, the one that actually solves problems, is not to tear the whole system down and hurt the people inside it. The better approach is to demand that the system works better. To hold leaders accountable for making it more efficient, more responsive, and more just. Firing people doesn't fix a single problem. It's like being angry at the traffic. So, you decide to slash the tires of the bus driver. It doesn't get you anywhere faster. In fact, it brings everything to a grinding halt. We have to channel our frustration into building something better. Not just breaking what we have. 11:01 Our leaders should be uniting us to fix our common problems, not dividing us against our neighbors. Let's think about what happens to a community when its federal workers are threatened. It's like dropping a stone into a still pond. The ripples spread out much farther than you'd think. This isn't just about the person with the federal job. It's about the whole town. Think about the local diner where those workers buy their lunch every day. Suddenly, its tables are empty. The owner, a small business owner, has to start cutting hours for her weight staff. Think about the dry cleaner, the local mechanic, the familyrun grocery store. They all feel the hit. When people are afraid of losing their jobs, they stop spending money. They hold on to every penny just in case. And that fear spreads. 12:07 It creates uncertainty. The local economy, which might have been doing just fine, suddenly gets nervous. people stop thinking about buying a new car or fixing up the house. The entire community starts to hold its breath. And this is why you cannot separate the government from the people. They are completely connected. Hurting one group of workers inevitably hurts others. We are all part of the same economic fabric. A good leader understands this. They know that stability is what allows communities to thrive. They know that creating chaos and uncertainty is the fastest way to damage a local economy. A better approach is to think about all 13:02 the ripples before you throw the stone. To understand that your decisions in a big office in Washington have real consequences for the small business owner on Main Street. There's another piece to this that we haven't talked about. It's the message something like this sends to the rest of the path world. For generations, America's strength has not just been our military or the size of our economy. It's been the stability and the reliability of our government. It's been the idea that America is a country where the rule of law is respected and things, work, people, businesses, and other countries could count on us. When they see headlines about our own government being shut down, about our leaders threatening to fire their own workers, 14:02 it damages that image. It sends a message of chaos and instability. Our allies start to wonder if they can rely on us. Our adversaries watch with satisfaction, seeing us weaken ourselves from within. You can't be a strong leader on the world stage if your own house is in disarray. You can't project confidence and reliability if you are inflicting so much uncertainty on your own people. Our federal workforce, our diplomats, our intelligence analysts, our trade negotiators are the face of America to the world. They are the ones who build the relationships and manage the crisis that keep us safe. To treat them as disposable is to fundamentally weaken our standing in the world. True global leadership 15:03 begins at home. It begins with having a functional government. It begins with treating our public servants with the respect they deserve. That is how you project to strength, not through loud talk, but through steady, stable, and responsible governance. This all takes me back to my own time in office. Uh I I remember during the H1N1 crisis and later with Ebola, I'd be in the situation room late at night and around that table were not just political appointees but the career public servants, doctors and scientists from the CDC, uh logistics experts from the Department of Defense, diplomats from the State Department. These were people who had served under presidents of both parties and their loyalty wasn't to me 16:00 personally or to any political party. Their loyalty was to the United States of America and to the health and safety of its people. They worked tirelessly around the clock, not for fame or for big bonus, but because they knew what was at stake. They were experts. They were dedicated and I as president relied on their expertise to make the best possible decision for the country. I saw that same dedication after the Deep Water Horizon oil spill. And during the long slow work of pulling our economy uh out of the great recession time and time again, I saw the incredible value of a professional dedicated civil service. These folks are the engine of the government. They have the institutional 17:01 knowledge and the experience that is vital to keeping the country running through any storm. So when I see their service being disrespected, when I see their livelihoods threatened, it's not just an abstract policy issue for me. I think of those faces around the table. I think of their professionalism and their quiet patriotism and I know with absolute certainty that we are a stronger, safer and better country because of them. So it all comes down to this. What do we believe public service is? Is it just another job or is it something more? I believe it is a calling. I believe it is one of the most honorable things a person can do. To choose to serve your country, to commit 18:00 your career to the public good is a profound act of citizenship. The judge's order gives us a chance to reaffirm this belief. It gives us a moment to step back and say, 'Yes, this work matters. the people who do it matter and uh we as a country uh will respect them. But we can't stop there. We need to do more than just respect public service. We need to encourage it. We need to inspire a new generation to see the value and the honor in working for the American people. We need to rebuild the idea that you can make a real difference by working in governments. Whether you are a a scientist searching for a cure, an engineer building a new road, or a teacher in a public school, you are building America. So, let's use this moment. Let this be a 19:00 turning point. Let's start a new conversation about the importance of public service and let's demand a government that reflects that value. A government that is not a source of chaos, but a source of stability. A government that doesn't threaten its own people, but invests in them. A government that remembers who it works for you. We have a lot of work to do. Let's get started. I think it's important for us to understand how a decision like this threatening to fire thousands of people even gets made. It doesn't happen by accident. It happens when leaders surround themselves with a very small circle of people who tell them what they want to hear. It happens in a bubble where the only thing that matters is how why a decision will look on the news tonight or how it will play with your political base. In that kind of environment, the real world 20:04 consequences, the human costs that the judge talked about can seem very far away. The people who are going to be hurt by the decision don't have a voice in that room. The experts, the career staff who have seen this all before and know the damage it will cause are often ignored. Good governance is the exact opposite of that. A good process involves listening to lots of different voices, especially the ones you don't agree with. It involves asking tough questions like, who will be harmed by this? What are the unintended consequences? Is there a better way to do this? It involves valuing evidence and experience over political talking points. That process can feel slow. It can be frustrating. But it's how you avoid catastrophic 21:02 mistakes. It's how you ensure that the government is working for everyone. Not just for the people who have the most power. A leader's most important job is not just to make decisions, but to create a process that leads to wise decisions. When you see chaos and harm as a result of a policy, it's almost always because that process has failed. Let's talk about something that gets broken in moments like these that is very hard to fix. Trust. The trust between the American people and their government. Every time the government shuts down or threatens its own workers, that trust is damaged. People start to see their government not as a force for good or even as a neutral administrator, but as something unstable 22:02 and even hostile. It creates a deep cynicism that is like a poison to our democracy. Because what happens the next time we face a real crisis? What happens when the CDC needs to issue a warning about a new virus and people don't believe them because they see the agency as a bit of just another political tool? What happens when FEMA needs people to evacuate before a hurricane and they don't listen because they've lost faith in the government's competence. This isn't a theoretical problem. We've seen it happen when people lose trust in their institutions. They become much harder to govern and much harder to protect. Rebuilding that trust is slow, painstaking work. It takes years of 23:01 steady, reliable, and honest governance. It takes leaders who keep their promises, who admit when they're wrong, and who treat the public and press of public servants with respect. This single act of threatening jobs has done long-term damage to that bond of trust. And uh we will all pay the price for that long after this shutdown is over. The judge's ruling helps, but the deeper wound will take much longer to heal. I understand that for many people who were opposed to these actions, the judge's ruling brought a sense of vindication, a feeling of I told you so. You see the damage being done, you speak out against it, and then a court of law agrees that it is in fact harmful. That feeling is natural. It's human. But I want to urge us to be careful with that feeling 24:04 because vindication on its own. Doesn't build anything. It can feel good for a moment, but it doesn't bridge the divide. It doesn't solve the underlying problem that's caused the conflict in the first place. If we stop at just wanting to be proven right, we miss the opportunity to actually make things better. The goal should not be to win an argument. The goal should be to restore our country to a place of stability and mutual respect. The challenge for those who feel vindicated today is to turn that feeling into something productive. Instead of saying, 'See, you were wrong.' A better approach is to extend the hand and say, 'Okay, this path was harmful. Let's find a better one together. This is the harder work. It's easier to stay on our own 25:03 teams and score points against the other side.' But that is not how a great country moves forward. We have to be big enough to look past the arguments of today and think about the country. We want to leave for our children tomorrow. That requires grace. It requires us to move beyond the satisfaction of being right and towards the responsibility of doing what is right. Through all this noise, I keep thinking about the federal workers themselves. I want you to think about them not as victims in this story, but as the quiet heroes of it. Imagine for a moment what it takes to be one of them right now. You've been told your work isn't essential. You've been publicly 26:00 disrespected. Your family's financial security has been threatened. And yet what are these men and women doing? They are waiting. They are ready to go back to work at a moment's notice. I can promise you they are still checking their work emails from home. They are still thinking about the projects they were forced to leave unfinished. uh they are still committed to their mission. They are the air traffic controller who despite the stress knows that when the call comes he has to be ready to keep our skies safe. They are the scientists who despite the uncertainty are hoping they can get back into their labs to continue their research. Their sense of duty is 27:02 stronger than the political chaos that surrounds them. This is a powerful, profound form of patriotism. It's not loud. It doesn't wave a flag. It's the quiet, steady, resilient commitment to serving the American people. Even when their own leaders fail to serve them, they are the ones holding up their end of the promise. Even when the other side has broken it, they are the bedrock and we owe them not only our support but our deepest admiration. So we find ourselves at a fork in the road to this judge's ruling has given us a moment to pause and look at the two paths that lie before us as a country. down one path is more of this more chaos, more shutdowns, more using federal workers as political pawns. It's 28:05 a path where the government is seen as a weapon to be used against your opponents and the cost to the country, to our stability and to our people is simply ignored. It is a path of constant crisis, deep cynicism and division. Then there is another path. This path is less noisy. It doesn't make for angry headlines. It's a path of responsible governance. It's where leaders of different parties decide that while they will always have disagreements, they will not burn the house down to settle them. It's a path where our public servants are respected, where problems are solved through negotiation, and where the primary goal is the long-term health and stability of 29:02 the nation. It is a path of common sense and mutual respect. The judge's order temporarily blocked the first path and pointed us back toward the second, but it's a temporary measure. The choice of which path we take in the long run does not belong to a judge. It belongs to us, the American people. So the question we all have to answer is which path do we want for our country? What will we demand from the people we elect to lead us? Let's think about this in terms of two different economies. uh there is uh an economy of fear and there is uh an economy of confidence. An economy of fear is created when there is constant chaos and uncertainty. It's what happens when workers are afraid they'll be fired. 30:01 When small businesses are afraid their customers will disappear. When investors are afraid the government might shut down again. At any moment in an economy of fear, everyone pulls back. They save instead of spend. They delay plans. They wait and see. This kind of fear doesn't just harm the people directly involved. It puts a break on the entire country's economic engine. It is a self-inflicted wound born from reckless political games. Then there is an economy of confidence. This is the economy we should always be trying to build. It's an economy where people feel secure in their jobs. Uh where businesses can count on a stable environment where you can make long-term plans for your family or your company because you trust that the government will be a steady, reliable partner, not 31:02 a source of chaos. Confidence is the fuel of a healthy economy. It allows for growth, innovation, and prosperity. The choice to threaten thousands of jobs was a choice to inject fear into our economy. The judge's ruling was a small injection of confidence. The better path for our leaders is clear. Stop choosing fear. Do the steady sometimes boring work of building confidence for the American people. That is how you create real lasting prosperity for everyone. You know, as a father, I often find myself thinking about the lessons we're teaching our children. They see these things happening. They listen to the news. They hear the 32:04 way we talk about our leaders and our country and they learn from it. So what does an episode like this teach them when they see leaders resorting to threats and stuck towns to settle a disagreement? What lesson do they absorb? They learn that the loudest voice wins. They learn that it's okay to hold things hostage, to get your way. They learn that compromise is a weakness and that inflicting harm on others is an acceptable tactic in a fight. I don't think those are the lessons any of us, Republican or Democrat, want to pass on to the next generation. We want to teach our kids the values of empathy, 33:00 responsibility, and respect. We want them to learn how to solve problems by listening to each other and finding common ground. We want them to see our government and the people in it as something worthy of their respect, not their contempt. This is why these moments in our political life are so important. They are teachable moments not just for us but for our children. And right now the lesson has been a poor one. The judge s ruling provides an opportunity to change that lesson. It's a chance for leaders to show our kids what responsible behavior looks like. chance to show them that the grown-ups in charge can in fact act like grown-ups. During times like these, it's also important to think about how we get our information. The story of this shutdown and the judge's ruling is being 34:01 told in many different ways. Depending on which channel you watch or which website you read, some will focus only on the political fight, the strategy, the question of who's winning and who's losing in Washington. It's all reported like a sports match. But when the news is only about the game, we lose sight of what's really at stake. We lose sight of the human cost. I would urge all of you to be mindful consumers of information. Look for the stories that go beyond the political horse race. Look for the articles or the news segments that are actually talking to the federal workers and their families. Listen to the small business owners in towns that are affected by the shutdown. Seek out the information that tells the whole story, not just the part that makes you angry or confirms 35:03 what you already believe. In an age of so much noise, the most powerful thing you can do is to stay grounded in the facts and uh in the real human consequences of what's happening. A well-informed public is the best check we have against the abuse of power. Don't let the noise distract you from what is truly important during a shutdown. We hear a lot of talk about essential versus non-essential workers. I have always had a problem with that language. It suggests that the work some people do doesn't really matter. Now, it's true that some jobs are essential for immediate life and safety. We need air traffic controllers. on the job. We need our border patrol 36:04 and our military, but that doesn't mean other jobs aren't essential to the long-term health and success of our country. Is the scientist working on a cure for cancer not essential? Is the historian preserving our nation s history at the national archives? Not essential. Is the person who makes sure your social security check is processed correctly. Not essential to your grandparents. The truth is all public service is essential. Every single job contributes to the functioning of our society. It's a complex ecosystem where every part has a role to play. The language of essential and non-essential is a political tool used 37:00 to divide people and to devalue public work. We shouldn't fall for it. The better approach is to recognize that our country needs all of it. We need the scientists and the park rangers, the diplomats and the food inspectors. Their work may not all have the same urgency in a crisis, but it all has the same fundamental value. It is all part of the great shared project of building and maintaining this country. So, how do we find our way back from a moment that is so full of anger and division? How do we heal? It starts with a simple idea, accountability. First, the leaders who chose this destructive path have to be held accountable for the harm they caused. The judge's ruling was one form of accountability, but the most important form comes from you, the people. But it can't stop there. 38:02 Finding our way back also requires a commitment from all of us. A commitment to learning from this moment and to making sure it never happens again. It means we must collectively agree that using our public servants as hostages in a political fight is out of bounds. It is unacceptable no matter which party is doing it. And uh finally finding our way back requires a little bit of grace. It requires us to believe that we can be better than this. It means looking at your neighbor who may disagree with you politically and remembering that they too want what's best for their family and their country. It means finding the humanity in each other. Again, this judge's ruling was not an ending. It was 39:05 an interruption. It gave our country a chance to stop, to think, and to choose a better way. The work of choosing that better way and walking that path together is the hard work that lies ahead for all of us.

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