Trump’s a phony champion, says angry Obama
United States President Barack Obama has implored Americans to consider the gravity of the presidential election eight weeks away, calling Republican Donald Trump a dangerous fraud who has no real idea of what it means to be president.
Turning serious at the close of a rollicking campaign rally for Democrat Hillary Clinton in Philadelphia yesterday, Obama allowed himself to ‘‘vent’’ about a Republican nominee who he said ‘‘isn’t fit in any way, shape or form to represent this country’’.
With a note of exasperation, Obama said he had lost patience with the trivialities of a campaign dominated by what he called a reality television mentality. He also acknowledged part of Trump’s outsider appeal, and likened it to his own.
‘‘Look, I understand. We’re a young country. We are a restless country,’’ Obama said. ‘‘We always like the new, shiny thing. I benefited from that when I was a candidate. And we take for granted sometimes what’s steady and true. And Hillary Clinton’s steady, and she is true.’’
The rally was planned long before Clinton fell ill last weekend and cancelled a planned West Coast campaigning and fundraising swing. Obama called no direct attention to her illness, even when someone in the crowd fainted and Obama told the crowd to do knee bends and drink water.
Obama first made a joke of Trump’s admiration for Russian President Vladimir Putin, an adversary of Obama’s throughout his presidency, but then sought to shame Trump.
‘‘I have to do business with Putin. I have to do business with Russia. That’s part of foreign policy. But I don’t go around saying, ‘That’s my role model’,’’ Obama said of the authoritarian former KGB agent. ‘‘Could you imagine Ronald Reagan idolising somebody like that?’’
Obama mocked the businessman and novice candidate as a fraudulent champion for the working class, suggesting he was merely exploiting this year’s populist voter mood after a lifetime of gilded circumstances.
‘‘This is the guy you want to be championing working people? This guy who spent 70 years on this earth showing no concern for working people?’’
During a rally in Clive, Iowa, Trump took sharp aim at Clinton and Obama, arguing their policies had harmed the country and that Clinton’s character flaws disqualified her from being president.
Eight weeks to the day until Election Day, Obama appeared to revel in his star turn as Clinton’s defender. He said he ‘‘really, really, really’’ wanted to see her elected, and pledged to work hard on her behalf.
But he seemed most energised when criticising Trump. He left little doubt that he is on a personal mission to defeat the man who rose to political prominence as the celebrity proponent of the false ‘‘birther’’ theory that Obama was not born in the US and is therefore not legitimately president.
He drew laughs when he took aim at Trump’s charitable foundation, noting that he ‘‘took money other people gave to his charity and then bought a six-foot-tall painting of himself. He had the taste not to go for the 10-foot version’’.
Clinton’s campaign sent out Twitter messages quoting Obama, while he made the case that she represented inclusion and diversity, compared with what Democrats call Trump’s message of division and bigotry.
Obama is next expected on the campaign trail in October, with a focus on young voters, blacks and Hispanics.