Former United States President Barack Obama has criticised President Donald Trump’s second term, accusing his administration of cruelty, corruption and incompetence while campaigning for Democratic candidates ahead of the November 3 midterm elections. According to Al Jazeera, Obama made the remarks on Saturday at campaign rallies in Ohio and Michigan,…...
Former United States President Barack Obama has criticised President Donald Trump’s second term, accusing his administration of cruelty, corruption and incompetence while campaigning for Democratic candidates ahead of the November 3 midterm elections.
According to Al Jazeera, Obama made the remarks on Saturday at campaign rallies in Ohio and Michigan, where he criticised Trump’s foreign policy, particularly the US-Israel war on Iran, and urged voters to support Democratic candidates.
“The current president chose to make a series of bad decisions,” the 65-year-old Democrat said in Cleveland. “Most importantly, he decided to start an unnecessary war that nobody asked for,” he added, referring to the war on Iran.
Obama urged voters in Ohio to reject the Republican administration, saying: “After two years of chaos and cruelty and corruption and incompetence, the likes of which we have not seen in the modern era, you get a chance to say, ‘Enough is enough’.”
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He later travelled to Detroit, Michigan, to campaign for Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed and gubernatorial candidate Jocelyn Benson.
At the rally, Obama described the November 3 election as a “circuit breaker” that could “at least rein in some of the foolishness” of Trump’s presidency.
“We have never seen a president excel in straight-up grifting, on your dime, like this,” Obama said.
“Never seen a president so intent on selling favours like this,” he added, accusing the Republican Party of standing for “corrupt government, or inept government, or no government”.
Obama also challenged the Trump administration’s claims of victory in the war against Iran, arguing that the conflict had strengthened Tehran’s economic leverage as threats to shipping through the Strait of Hormuz unsettled oil exporters.
“Iran now has veto power over the Strait of Hormuz, where oil goes through to get to the world,” he said.
Obama Criticises Ramaswamy’s Campaign Advertisement
The former president also weighed in on the controversy surrounding an advertisement by Republican gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy targeting his Democratic opponent, Amy Acton.
“In recent days, we’ve seen there is no line he will not cross, no low he will not sink to,” Obama said of Ramaswamy. “I don’t know what’s happened where the standards of behaviour are so low that somebody could run an ad like that.”
The advertisement features Donna Arthur, Acton’s mother, disputing her daughter’s account of a childhood marked by homelessness and sexual abuse by her stepfather. Arthur urges Ohioans not to vote for her daughter.
Acton has said she has not seen her mother since 1978, while her brother has supported her account of being sexually abused by their stepfather during childhood. The stepfather, who died in 2004, had been charged with rape.
Backing Acton, Obama said she had “spoken movingly about her painful childhood and all she’s experienced: abuse, neglect and homelessness”.
Obama shared the campaign stage with Acton and former Ohio Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown.
Trump defended Ramaswamy’s advertisement on Saturday after casting his early ballot in Florida.
Obama Defends El-Sayed
In Michigan, Obama also condemned criticism directed at El-Sayed, suggesting that his name and Muslim faith were being used to undermine his candidacy.
“We have seen this movie before. I starred in it,” Obama told the Detroit rally. “I’ve got a long-form birth certificate to prove it.”
He added, “Abdul is as Michigan as it gets.”
Responding to descriptions of El-Sayed as a “radical”, Obama declared that “Abdul shares my values”.
Obama remains a prominent campaign figure for the Democratic Party nearly a decade after leaving the White House. He has been campaigning in the final days before the midterm elections, which will help determine the balance of power in US politics.
The former president is scheduled to headline a Democratic rally in Georgia next week alongside Senator Jon Ossoff and gubernatorial candidate Keisha Lance Bottoms.
Trump also campaigned in Georgia on Saturday.