President Obama announced last week that he would be hitting the campaign trail for his former VP, Joe Biden. On Wednesday, Obama made his first stop speaking in front of a crowd outside Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia, PA. While Obama has been vocal about his dislike for Trump in the past, yesterday the former president delivered one of his most scathing rebukes of Trump.
Obama spoke on the importance of getting Trump out of the White House, his four years of failures, and most recently his terrible handling of the coronavirus which left over 200,000 Americans dead.
“Donald Trump isn’t suddenly going to protect all of us. He can’t even take the basic steps to protect himself,” Obama said. “Here’s the truth—I want to be honest here: This pandemic would have been challenging for any president. But this idea that somehow this White House has done anything but completely screw this up is just not true.”
Obama continued his attack on Trump, further criticizing his handling of the pandemic.
“Other countries are still struggling with the pandemic but they’re not doing as bad as we are because they’ve got a government that’s actually been paying attention,” he continued. “… And just yesterday, when asked if he’d do anything differently, Trump said, ‘Not much.’ Really? Not much? Nothing you can think of that could have helped some people keep their loved ones alive? So, Joe’s not going to screw up testing. He’s not going to call scientists idiots. He’s not going to host a super spreader event at the White House. Joe will get this pandemic under control with a plan to make testing free and widely available, to get a vaccine to every American cost-free and to make sure our frontline heroes never ask other countries for their equipment they need.”
Obama also talked about Trump’s plan to repeal Obamacare, or to some people, the Affordable Care Act.
“It just won’t be so exhausting. You might be able to have a Thanksgiving dinner without having an argument,” Obama said. “You’ll be able to go about your lives knowing that the president is not going to retweet conspiracy theories about secret cabals running the world or that maybe seals didn’t actually kill Bin Laden. Think about that. The president of the United States retweeted that. Imagine. What? What? We’re not going to have a president that goes out of his way to insult anybody who doesn’t support him or threaten them with jail. That’s not normal presidential behavior.”
Obama also took aim at Trump’s dealings with China and the fact that Trump paid more taxes to China than the U.S.
“We know that he continues to do business with China, because he’s got a secret Chinese bank account. How is that possible?” Obama said. “Can you imagine if I had a secret Chinese bank account when I was running for reelection? You think Fox News might have been a little concerned about that? They would have called me Beijing Barry.”
Biden currently leads Trump in national polls, and in Pennsylvania. In order to get the 270 electoral votes needed to win, Biden needs to be able to convert leads in Wisconsin and Michigan into wins. 40 million mail-in ballots have already been cast. However, even though there are only 12 days until the election, it is still too early to celebrate.
