Obama frets over Biden polls
Blasts Trump for ‘not taking job seriously’
Former US president Barack Obama excoriated Donald Trump and warned on Wednesday against complacency despite favourable opinion polls during his first public rally in support of Democratic challenger Joe Biden ahead of the Nov 3 election.
At the drive-in rally in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, one of a handful of battleground states expected to decide the election, Mr Obama lashed out at Mr Trump’s behaviour and declared him “incapable of taking the job seriously”.
But he also issued a stark reminder of 2016, when opinion polls showed Hillary Clinton as the clear favourite — only for her and her supporters to be shocked by a Trump victory on election day.
“We can’t be complacent. I don’t care about the polls,” the former twoterm president told the rally outside a baseball stadium.
“There were a whole bunch of polls last time. Didn’t work out. Because a whole bunch of folks stayed at home. And got lazy and complacent. Not this time. Not in this election.”
He told supporters that too much was at stake to have four more years of Mr Trump leading the nation, seeking to contrast his successor — a real estate mogul and ex-reality TV star — with his former vice president.
“This is not a reality show. This is reality,” Mr Obama said. “And the rest of us have had to live with the consequences of him proving himself incapable of taking the job seriously.”
He pointed to Mr Trump running roughshod over previous norms, including conspiracy theory retweets.
“Our democracy’s not going to work if the people who are supposed to be our leaders lie every day and just make things up,” he said. “And we just become numb to it.”
Earlier, at a roundtable with black community organisers in Philadelphia, he said “the pandemic would have been tough for any president, we haven’t seen something like this for 100 years”.