Obama: ‘Right now I’m going to try to stay out of campaign season’

President Obama on Monday turned down a chance to hurl attacks at the 2016 presidential field during a trip to Iowa, the first state in the nominating process.

“Right now I’m going to try to stay out of campaign season, partly because I can’t keep track of all the candidates,” Obama joked with a crowd at an Iowa high school. “I’ll wait until it’s winnowed down a little until I have an opinion.”

{mosads}Obama made the trip to Iowa to join Education Secretary Arne Duncan on his back-to-school bus tour, where they announced reforms to the federal financial aid application. It is part of a weeklong effort to highlight the administration’s plan to make higher education more accessible across the country.

The trip to an important battleground state — coming just two days before the next GOP debate and five months before the Iowa caucus — raised speculation that Obama would turn toward 2016 in his remarks. It is his 18th trip to the state that launched his 2008 bid, and only his second in 2015.

When asked earlier on Monday why the president picked Iowa out of the half-dozen states on Duncan’s bus tour, White House spokesman Josh Earnest didn’t dismiss the political backdrop.

“The goal is not to comment on one particular candidate’s policy,” Earnest told reporters. “But in some cases, there are candidates with a record of not prioritizing college education, and I wouldn’t put it past the president to say something about that.”

But Obama did not take the bait.

When asked about the candidate with the best education plan, he declined. Instead, he urged voters to support any candidate who promises to support schools and to raise standards without naming a single candidate.

After making clear that he wouldn’t be handing out endorsements, he fielded his next question from a self-declared Hillary Clinton supporter, but didn’t address her specific plans.

He then took a question from a student who asked if Obama supported a law to withhold funding from colleges that demonstrate “political bias” — a veiled reference to presidential candidate Ben Carson’s comments earlier this summer.

“I have no idea what that means. I suspect he doesn’t either,” Obama said, without naming the 2016 candidate.

At points, though, the undertones in his speech were clear.

He condemned the raucous debate on illegal immigration that has burst into the GOP field with the help of billionaire businessman Donald Trump.

“When I hear folks talking as if somehow these kids are different than my kids, or less worthy in the eyes of God … I think that’s un-American. I do not believe that,” Obama declared.

He also delivered a less-than-subtle jab against Republicans in Congress for not yet finding a way to fund the government just days ahead of the deadline.

“So far Congress has not come up with a budget,” Obama said. “And there are some in the other party who are comfortable with keeping in place something called sequester, which is going to result in significant cuts over the next several years in the amount of federal support for education.”

— This story was updated at 6:24 p.m.