Barack Obama tells Iowans not to vote for 'teacher-bashing' Republicans

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Outgoing U.S. president said he's 'trying to stay out of the campaign season' - then hit Republicans who he said bash teachers
Obama separately hit Carson for saying he'd defund schools with political biases - 'I have no idea what that means. I suspect he doesn't either'
Also suggested Bernie Sanders' free college tuition plan was unrealistic

By Francesca Chambers, White House Correspondent For Dailymail.com In Des Moines

Published: 19:54 EST, 14 September 2015 | Updated: 10:34 EST, 15 September 2015

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President Barack Obama declined to throw his weight behind a potential successor during a trip to Iowa today as a town hall audience vigorously tried to get him to talk 2016.

The outgoing U.S. president said he's 'trying to stay out of the campaign season' and wants to see the large field 'winnow down' before he makes his pick.

Unable to resist the opportunity to knock several Republicans running whom he especially disagrees with, Obama came back to the question, which was related to the contenders' education plans, and urged the Des Moines audience not to vote for someone whose platform relies on 'teacher-bashing.'

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Unable to resist the opportunity to knock several Republicans running whom he especially disagrees with, President Barack Obama urged a Des Moines audience today not to vote for someone whose platform relies on 'teacher-bashing'

At another point during the event he suggested Ben Carson, the No. 2 Republican on the trail, did not know what he was talking about when it comes to higher education and his reforms would be a better fit in the Soviet Union.

And while the president didn't directly criticize independent-turned-Democrat and presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, he did indicate, in response to a question from an intern for Hillary Clinton, that he thinks the U.S. Senator's higher education plan is unrealistic.

Sanders, a self-described Democratic socialist, wants to make public universities free and has introduced a bill in Congress that would do so.

His tuition-free higher education plan relies on states to pay a third of the $70 billion a year his office says it takes to run public universities. The federal government would pay another two-thirds of the total cost, with that money coming from new taxes on stocks, bonds and derivatives.

Asked today what he thinks about making college free, Obama said: 'I think it is absolutely realistic for us to first of all have the first two years of community college free, because it's in my budget. And I know how to pay for it.'

After spending several minutes talking up his own plan, the president said, 'If we can get that done, then I think we can start building from there.'

The question about Sanders was one of several related to the Oval Office competition that students and parents craftily tried to slip into Obama's appearance at the college affordability event, which the president joined Secretary of Education Arne Duncan at this afternoon

It was Obama who first noted the elephant in the room, saying of the heated race that is underway for the White House at the top of his remarks, 'I just can't imagine what kind of person would put themselves through somethin' like this.'

The two-term president is legally unable to run again. He unknowingly opened up a can of worms with the wise crack, as questioner after questioner asked him for his opinion on the 2016 line-up.

After first begging off of the question about which candidate he thought was the best on education, Obama spoke up, after Duncan's took a swing at it, and, said,'If you hear a candidate say that the big problem with education is teachers, you should not vote for that person.'

'It is a hard job, and it is the most important job we've got, and the folks who go into teaching,' he said, don't do it for the money.

Obama told the 1,000 person audience, 'I cant tell you who to vote for - at least not right now, later I will - but I can tell you who to vote against, and that is somebody who decides that somehow teachers don't deserve the kind of respect and the decent pay that they deserve.'

Students and parents craftily tried to slip 2016 questions into Obama's appearance at a college affordability event today, which the president joined Secretary of Education Arne Duncan

He did not names, but the Iowa Democratic Party did in a subsequent email to reporters.

It listed links to unfavorable comments about teachers made by Jeb Bush, Scott Walker, Carly Fiorinia, John Kasich and Chris Christie.

Obama separately hit Carson after he was asked about the retired neurosurgeon's assertion in June during an Iowa campaign event that his Department of Education would defund universities with an 'extreme political bias.'

'First of all, I didn't hear this candidate say that. I have no idea what that means,' Obama told a student who asked him about what she framed as the GOP candidate's plan to cut off funding to 'politically biased colleges.'

The president added, 'I suspect he doesn't either.'

Expounding on the purpose of college, Obama contended is to 'widen horizons' and serve as space for debate and enlightenment.

'The idea that you'd have somebody in government, making a decision about what you should think ahead of time, or what you should be taught, and if it's not the right thought, or idea, or perspective or philosophy, that that person, that they wouldn't get funding, runs contrary to everything we believe about education,' he said.

The president said, 'I guess that might work in the Soviet Union, but it doesn't work here.'

'That's not who we are. That's not what we're about.'

At the same time, schools shouldn't be preventing certain books from being read or blocking conservative speakers from coming to college campuses. Free speech should not be silenced, he said, and students shouldn't be 'coddled.'