Obama tears into Trump’s presidency after years of restraint
BARACK OBAMA delivered one of his most cutting critiques of Donald Trump’s presidency to date at the Democratic convention, accusing his successor of treating the job like a “reality show” and being willing to “tear down democracy” to get a second term.
The address dominated yesterday’s news headlines in America as Mr Trump retaliated on Twitter with capital-letter attacks during the speech and later sharing suggestions that Mr Obama was a “sore loser”.
For more than three years the former
US president has been reluctant to directly call out the man who replaced him in the White House. But on the third night of the Democratic convention, Mr Obama put aside niceties to portray Mr Trump as a threat to democracy, using the word no fewer than 18 times as he spoke from Philadelphia, where the US Constitution was drafted.
In veiled references, Mr Obama decried “the meanness and the lies and crazy conspiracy theories” seen in modern politics, yet on other occasions singled out his successor by name.
In one of the most biting passages, Mr Obama compared Joe Biden, the Democratic presidential nominee who served as his vice president for eight years, with Mr Trump, concluding the current president was too flawed to make a good US leader.
Mr Obama said: “I have sat in the Oval Office with both of the men who are running for president. I never expected that my successor would embrace my vision or continue my policies. I did hope, for the sake of our country, that Donald Trump might show some interest in taking the job seriously; that he might come to feel the weight of the office and discover some reverence for the democracy that had been placed in his care.
“But he never did. For close to four years now, he’s shown no interest in putting in the work; no interest in finding common ground; no interest in using the awesome power of his office to help anyone but himself and his friends; no interest in treating the presidency as anything but one more reality show that he can use to get the attention he craves. Donald Trump hasn’t grown into the job because he can’t.” Mr Obama then targeted Mr Trump’s handling of the pandemic, a central theme running through this week’s convention, saying getting through the crisis “depends on a fidelity to facts and science and logic and not just making stuff up”.
His warning that democracy was “at stake” was an apparent reference to growing concerns that Mr Trump was undercutting the postal voting system.
“This administration has shown it will tear our democracy down if that’s what it takes to win,” he said.
While Mr Obama’s speech was being broadcast live on cable news channels, Mr Trump, who had remained largely silent on Twitter during the two hours of Democratic convention programming every night this week, intervened with two tweets.
“HE SPIED ON MY CAMPAIGN, AND GOT CAUGHT!” Mr Trump wrote in one, appearing to refer to Mr Obama.
Another read: “WHY DID HE REFUSE TO ENDORSE SLOW JOE UNTIL
IT WAS ALL OVER, AND EVEN THEN WAS VERY LATE? WHY DID HE TRY TO GET HIM NOT TO RUN?”
Hillary Clinton, the 2016 Democratic nominee, raised the prospect that Mr Trump could “steal” this year’s election. The president later shared a tweet from a Republican senator calling Ms Clinton and Mr Obama “sore losers”.
Meanwhile, Kamala Harris formally became the Democratic vice presidential nominee, making her the first woman of colour to appear on a presidential ticket for a major US party.