OBAMA: TRUMP’S BORDER DEPLOYMENT PLAN A ‘POLITICAL STUNT’
MIAMI: Former president Barack Obama decried as a “political stunt” Donald Trump’s plan to send thousands of US soldiers to the Mexican border to block migrants from entering the country.
In a rousing speech on Friday to a Miami crowd as he campaigned for fellow Democrats ahead of next week’s midterm elections, Obama said the Republican administration was “even taking our brave troops away from their families for a political stunt at the border.”
Trump, immigration who has placed at the heart of his party’s election effort, has persistently attacked the caravan of Central American migrants, denouncing it as a potential “invasion.”
Trump announced earlier this week that he would send thousands of troops to the border to beef up national defences at the border.
He has campaigned heavily on the issue, warning supporters on Thursday that migrants would soon be “overwhelming your schools, your hospitals, your communities.”
Obama said the deployment was serving to “get folks angry and ginned up,” adding: “There’s just constant fearmongering to distract from the record.”
The nation’s first African American commander in chief took the stage with Andrew Gillum, who is locked in a tight race for governor of Florida against pro-trump Republican Ron Desantis, and Senator Bill Nelson, who is running for re-election against outgoing Governor Rick Scott.
“Let’s make history happen right here in Florida,” Obama told jubilant supporters at the end of a speech that was occasionally interrupted by prorepublican protesters.
Obama urged more decisive action by Americans who have grown frustrated by the first 21 months of Trump’s presidency. “If you don’t like what’s going on right now, don’t just complain,” Obama said.
“Don’t get anxious and freaked out, don’t throw up your hands in despair. Don’t boo. Don’t hashtag. Vote!” In the home stretch of a campaign marked by a recent deadly anti-semitic attack and the interception of parcel bombs sent to prominent Democrats including Obama, the former president called for defending “the values that bind us to our fellow citizens, no matter who we are.”