US President Donald Trump has been telling voters to view the midterm elections as if he were on the ballot, and on Saturday one of his Democratic predecessors did just that.
Ten days out from the elections that will determine control of the closely divided Congress, Barack Obama took to the campaign trail to accuse the Republican president of corruption, deride his strategy for Iran and skewer the gilded aesthetic he has applied to White House renovations.
Obama stumped for Democratic candidates at rallies in Cleveland and Detroit, lampooning the Trump administration. Campaigning in Michigan for US Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, Obama framed the November 3 vote as a “circuit breaker” to “at least rein in some of the foolishness” of Trump’s presidency.
“We got to flip that circuit breaker, bring some accountability to this government,” Obama said.
Obama, president from 2009 until Trump began his first term in 2017, remains one of the most popular figures among Democrats. They hope that bringing him into the race can fire up their supporters for a tight US Senate race in which El-Sayed faces Republican Mike Rogers, a former US representative.
The former president obliged the Michigan crowd by playing to Democrats’ frequently repeated criticisms of Trump and of Republicans’ willingness to go along with him.
“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 … Now the party seems to stand for corrupt government, or inept government, or no government.”
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
A Reuters/Ipsos poll in August found that 63 per cent of Americans think the president and his family have inappropriately profited from cryptocurrency since he returned to the White House last year and that 69pc believe his policy decisions are influenced by his private business dealings.
Obama also ridiculed the administration’s claims of victory against Iran. He argued that the war has given Iran more economic leverage because its threats to attack shipping in the Strait of Hormuz have unsettled oil exporters.
“Iran now has veto power over the Strait of Hormuz, where oil goes through to get to the world,” Obama said.
The former president also accused the Trump administration of emphasising unimportant matters, sarcastically calling Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth someone “laser-focused on important matters like the jawline and testosterone levels of our troops” and ridiculing White House renovations as tacky.
“He’s got the White House looking like Saddam Hussein opened a Cheesecake Factory,” Obama said.