President Barack Obama returned to the campaign trail on Wednesday and gave a blistering critique of just how ‘crazy’ things are under President Donald Trump.
‘Can you imagine if I had had a secret Chinese bank account when I was running for re-election?’ the Democrat said at a drive-in-style event in Philadelphia. ‘They would have called me Beijing Barry!’
Obama, on the stump for Democratic nominee Joe Biden, pointed out that some of the conspiracy theories Trump has pushed on Twitter would barely be tolerated by a ‘crazy uncle’ with a ‘lie every day,’ as he begged Pennsylvanians to vote in the key swing state.
President Barack Obama went after President Donald Trump during his first trip back on the campaign trail Wednesday in Philadelphia
President Barack Obama is captured Wednesdsay afternoon at a campaign stop in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania before the speech that would mark his official return to the campaign trail
Abiding by social distancing protocols to prevent the spread of COVID-19, President Barack Obama’s speech in Philly was drive-in-style with supporters standing near or sitting in their cars
‘And with with Joe and Kamala at the helm you’re not going to have to think about the crazy things they said every day. And that’s worth a lot,’ Obama said. ‘You’re not going to have to argue about them every day. It just won’t be so exhausting.’
The former president suggested Thanksgivings might go off without a hitch.
‘You’ll be able to go about your lives knowing that the president is not going to retweet conspiracy theroies, about secret cabals running the world, or that Navy Seals didn’t actually kill bin Laden,’ he said.
‘Thank about that, the president of the United States retweeted that. Imagine. What? What?’ an aghast Obama asked.
Obama also pledged that under Biden and his running mate, Sen. Kamala Harris, ‘we’re not going to have a president who 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 pointed out.
‘We wouldn’t tolerate it from a high school principal, we wouldn’t tolerate it from a coach, we wouldn’t tolerate it from a co-worker. We wouldn’t tolerate it in our own family, except for maybe crazy uncle somewhere,’ Obama noted.
Two young girls hold up vintage Obama-Biden signs, while the car they are in has a 2020 Biden-Harris sign on the roof of it. Obama chose Philadelphia, Pennsylvania as the first place to hit on the campaign trail
‘Presidents up for re-election usually ask if the country is better off than it was four years ago,’ President Barack Obama said. ‘I’ll tell you one thing, four years ago you’d be tailgating here at the Linc instead of watching a speech from your cars’
President Barack Obama gave his speech in Philadelphia in front of the Lincoln Financial Field where the Philadelphia Eagles play
NBC’s Savannah Guthrie had called out the president for acting like a ‘crazy uncle’ during their town hall last Thursday.
‘Why would we expect and accept that from the president of the United States?’ Obama asked. ‘And why are people making excuses for that?’
Obama quoted Trump’s allies: ‘No, that’s just him.’
‘No. There are consequences to these actions,’ Trump’s predecessor argued.
Obama suggested Trump has been able to get away with a lot more and used the New York Times report that the president had a secret Chinese bank account as a prime example.
Had Obama done it, ‘You think Fox News might have been a little concerned about that?’ the ex-president asked and then pointed out that he’d probably be given the nickname ‘Beijing Barry.’
‘It’s not a great idea to have a president who owes a bunch of money to people overseas, that’s not good idea,’ Obama said.
He also knocked Trump for another Times scoop – that he only paid $750 in federal taxes during his first year in office.
‘Of the taxes Donald Trump pays he may be sending more to foreign governments than he pays in the United States,’ Obama pointed out.
‘My first job was at Baskin-Robbins when I was 15-years old,’ Obama recalled. ‘I think I might have paid more taxes this year working at a – dispensing ice cream. How is that possible? How many people here paid less than that?’ he asked. ‘Maybe, just maybe, he may not know what working people are going through here in Pennsylvania.’
President Barack Obama wore a VOTE mask at the beginning and end of his remarks as he hammered President Donald Trump coronavirus response
Audience members honked their car horns throughout Obama’s speech, which was set up in the parking lot outside the stadium where the Philadelphia Eagles play.
‘Presidents up for re-election usually ask if the country is better off than it was four years ago,’ Obama said. ‘I’ll tell you one thing, four years ago you’d be tailgating here at the Linc instead of watching a speech from your cars.’
Obama then ripped into Trump’s coronavirus response.
‘Look, I get that this president wants full credit for the economy he inherited and zero blame for the pandemic that he ignored. You know what? The job doesn’t work that way,’ the ex-president said. ‘Tweeting at the television doesn’t fix things, making things up doesn’t make people’s lives better.’
Earlier in the speech Obama had made fun of Trump’s television ratings.
‘Even then his TV ratings are down, so you know that upsets him,’ Obama said, earning a flurry of beeps from the crowd.
Obama pointed out how his administration had left the White House a pandemic playbook.
‘They probably used it to, I don’t know, prop up a wobbly table somewhere,’ he said.
Eight months in and with cases on the rise again, Obama pushed that Americans wouldn’t see any change.
‘Donald Trump isn’t suddenly going to protect all of us. He can’t even take the basic steps to protect himself,’ Obama said, whacking the president for Trump’s own battle with COVID-19.
The president used experimental treatments to recover quickly and for nine days has been holding almost a rally nightly.
He was flying to North Carolina on Wednesday when Obama’s speech aired.
‘Here’s the truth, I want to be honest here,’ Obama continued. ‘This pandemic would have been challengign for any president, but this idea that somehow this White House has done anything but completely screw this up is not true.’
He used example of how South Korea reported its first case around the same time as the U.S. and their per capita death is at just 1.3 per cent of the U.S.’s.
Obama also went after Trump for not regretting how he handled the pandemic.
Trump told Eric Bolling at a town hall filmed Tuesday that he wouldn’t change much if he could do it again.
‘Really? Not much?’ an incredulous Obama said. ‘Nothing you can think of that could have helped some people keep their loved ones alive.’
Handling a pandemic, Obama said, ‘depends more on just photo-ops.’
‘So Joe’s not going to screw up testing, he’s not going to call scientists idiots, he’s not going to host a superspreader event at the White House,’ Obama pledged.
And to show the stark contrast between how Trump has treated the virus and what the U.S. would get with the Democrats, Obama finished his speech as he started it – wearing a mask.
He put his ‘VOTE’ mask back on while onstage, before saying goodbye to crowd in their cars.