Foreign leaders to Obama: 'What is happening to America?'

The rhetoric of U.S. politics may besmirch how the rest of the world sees the country, President Obama told journalists on Monday.

"The No. 1 question I'm getting is, 'What is happening to America?'" he said at the Robin Toner Prize dinner, according to pool reports.

During the president's half-hour speech, he called on journalists to hold politicians accountable and to fact-check the things they say.

"If I say that the world is round and someone else says it's flat, that's worth reporting," he said. "But you might also want to report on a bunch of scientific evidence that shows the world is round."

The political world has "always been rough and tumble." Still, "when it doesn't matter what's true and what's not, that makes it all but impossible to make good decisions on behalf of future generations."

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The president didn't specifically mention any of the 2016 presidential candidates.