In Milwaukee, Obama says GOP hypocritical, fuels fear
MILWAUKEE — Former President Barack Obama criticized President Donald Trump’s tenure inofficefridayinafieryspeechin Milwaukee that took aim at him and other Republicans for “making stuff up.”
The speech was one of Obama’s sharpest during Trump’s presidency, although the former president was careful to never mention Trump by name.
Obama’s visit in Milwaukee was to urge people to vote for Wisconsin’s Democratic candidates.
While Trump was frequently the target of his criticism, he didn’t spare Republicans generally and said they are lying when they say they want to protect people with pre-existing conditions while trying to repeal the Affordable Care Act.
In Wisconsin, Gov. Scott Walker is being challenged by Democrat Tony Evers.
Obama then used the subject of Hillary Clinton’s private email server to accuse Republicans of trying to “scare the heck out of people before every election” and also to mock Trump about the Chinese spying on his cellphone.
“In the last election, it was Hillary’s emails. ‘This is terrible’ … ‘This is a national security crisis.’ They didn’t care about emails and you know how you know? Because if they did, they’d be up in arms right now that the Chinese are listening to the president’s iphone that he leaves in his golf cart.”
Obama spoke about the slow-moving migrant caravan from Central American bound for the United States as another example of a Republican scare tactic.
“Now the latest, they’re trying to convince everybody to be afraid of a bunch of impoverished, malnourished refugees a thousand miles away,” he said. “That’s the thing is the most important thing in this election,” he said. “Not health care, not whether or not folks are able to retire, doing something about higher wages, rebuilding our roads and bridges and putting people back to work.”
“Suddenly,” he continued, changing his voice to a high-pitch to strike a mocking tone, “it’s these group of folks. We don’t even know where they are. They’re right down there.”
Later Friday, Obama was holding another rally in Michigan, a battleground state in the Midwest that Democrats lost in 2016.