Akakan Umoh
Ahead of the midterm elections, former US President Barack Obama has launched fresh attacks on President Donald Trump likening him to agent of “chaos and cruelty” and a man of broken promises.
This is as Trump’s political support base is weakening owing to his declining 31 per cent Americans approved of his performance as depicted by the Reuters/Ipsos poll.
Obama delivered the remarks Saturday at a rally in support of Democratic gubernatorial candidate Amy Acton, a former top health director who was the target of a vicious MAGA attack ad, and former Sen. Sherrod Brown, who is trying to unseat Ohio’s GOP incumbent, former college football player.
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Appearing in Cleveland at his first campaign rally for this fall’s midterm elections, Obama mocked Trump’s ballroom construction and the gold accents he has added throughout the White House.
“Does anybody really think this guy in the White House right now is spending all that time thinking about these issues?” Obama wondered. “I mean, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but he seems very focused on home renovations. He should be on HGTV.”
Obama added a moment later: “He’s got the White House looking like Saddam Hussein opened a Cheesecake Factory.”
The crowd inside a near-capacity Public Auditorium, which holds more than 10,000, erupted with laughter at that and other quips Obama offered throughout his afternoon address.
The former president’s visit was aimed at boosting two Democrats: Amy Acton, the party’s nominee for governor, and former Sen. Sherrod Brown, who has mounted a comeback bid for his old job.
Ohio, which has become more reliably Republican since Trump’s rise in politics, has emerged as an intense battleground this year.
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Polls show both races are toss-ups, with Democrats especially hopeful of winning the governorship for the first time in 20 years.
“This midterm election victory runs through Ohio,” Rep. Shontel Brown, a Democrat whose district includes a large part of Cleveland, said as she warmed up the crowd.
Trump has rallied in the state twice in recent weeks, with a pitch primarily focused on Brown’s Republican rival, Sen. Jon Husted. Trump will return next week for an event in Chillicothe, a smaller, working-class city that served as Ohio’s first state capital.
Meanwhile, Donald Trump issued a scathing rebuke of Barack Obama after the former president attacked him at a midterm campaign rally.
Trump, 80, launched a Truth Social tirade at 12:42 a.m. Sunday, slamming Barack Obama as a “grossly incompetent President” who gave Iran a “road to a Nuclear Weapon.”
“He said that Crooked Hillary Clinton was going to WIN, he campaigned hard for her, and she lost in all directions and ways. He then campaigned full out for Kamala, and likewise, she lost,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post.
Trump then took aim at Obama for campaigning for Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic Senate candidate in Michigan, calling him a “Muslim Brotherhood Jihadist, who hates Jews and Blacks and AMERICANS and TRUMP, and he is going to lose, also.”
Trump continued: “He’s a Fake Doctor, who runs what is considered to be the WORST CLINIC IN AMERICA.”
El-Sayed’s criticism of the Israeli government has alienated some Jewish voters in Michigan, and he has also struggled to gain support among Black voters in the state.
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“Michigan doesn’t want an arrogant, Open Borders, Fake Doctor, Jihadist, whose reputation will only get worse as more information is revealed – And there’s plenty,” Trump said, before urging Michiganders to support his Senate pick, Mike Rogers. Polls show Rogers locked in a close race with the progressive doctor.
The president’s rant comes after Obama, 65, painted him as an agent of “chaos and cruelty” at his first midterm campaign rally, in Cleveland, Ohio, in his most searing attack of Trump in recent years.
“You remember that old thing about ‘drain the swamp’?” Obama asked the crowd. “The only thing that got drained was the Reflecting Pool in the National Mall after some no-bid contract got it all messed up.”
The former president delivered the remarks Saturday at a rally in support of Democratic gubernatorial candidate Amy Acton, a former top health director who was the target of a vicious MAGA attack ad, and former Sen. Sherrod Brown, who is trying to unseat Ohio’s GOP incumbent, former college football player, and object of Trump’s affection Jon Husted.
Obama has criticised Trump in the lead-up to the midterm election, where Republicans are facing the prospect of significant losses in the House of Representatives and are deadlocked in a battle to retain control of the Senate.
