I believe what Obama says is possible. I get crazy random rejections of my credit card all the time if their fraud algorithm trips. It only gets reenabled if I contact the bank.
Yeah maybe if you travel overseas or something. But someone who lives in DC travels to NYC and card is rejected for a restaurant meal? No rationale reason for that. Nor is inactivity. If an algorithm triggered the rejection it is a crappy algorithm and the person should get a better credit card.
It is more likely Obama was over his limit and had not paid his bill. Obama ALWAYS blames someone else.
Yes, I'm pretty sure President Obama is hardly broke. I'm actually surprised he was asked to pay his bill.