UNSCRIPTED

Obama: ‘Trayvon Could Have Been Me’

Makes surprise speech.

President Obama weighed in on the George Zimmerman verdict today in a surprise and informal talk given during the White House press meeting. The nation’s first black president spoke about the evolution of attitudes about race and said that while the nation had grown, it was “important for us to do some soul searching." "If Trayvon Martin was of age and was armed, could he have stood his ground on that sidewalk?" Obama asked. The president also related to the dead teen by telling reporters, "Trayvon could have been me, 35 years ago." Obama suggested that race played a role in both the killing and the verdict. “If a white male teen was involved in the same kind of scenario … both the outcome and the aftermath might have been different,” he said.