Former President Barack Obama is busy on the campaign trail stumping for his vice president, Joe Biden, the Democratic presidential nominee.
At a stop in Orlando Tuesday, Obama specifically hammered President Donald Trump for his mismanagement and constant falsehoods about the COVID-19 crisis, which has gripped America for nearly nine months.
“More than 225,000 people in this country are dead. More than 100,000 small businesses have closed. Half a million jobs are gone in Florida alone. Think about that,” Obama told socially-distanced attendees of a drive-in rally at Camping World Stadium. “And what’s his closing argument? That people are too focused on COVID. He said this at one of his rallies. ‘COVID, COVID, COVID,’ he’s complaining. He’s jealous of COVID’s media coverage. If he had been focused on COVID from the beginning, cases wouldn’t be reaching new record highs across the country this week.”
Obama’s needling struck a nerve with Trump, who tweeted “Obama is drawing VERY small (tiny) numbers of people. Biden is drawing almost no one. We are drawing tens of thousands of people. You’ll see that again today. The Great Red Wave is coming!!!”
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Trump continues to brag about his crowd size, not realizing that Democrats have smaller crowds in an attempt to prevent their events from becoming coronavirus super-spreader events.
The president attacked Biden on crowd size again while campaigning in the pivotal state of Pennsylvania this week, “He doesn’t leave his basement,” Trump said. “He’s a pathetic candidate.”
But Biden has said that large campaign events are “not appropriate” given the surge of coronavirus infections happening in the nation.
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President Obama also mocked Trump for trying to “act tough and talk tough.” He told Floridians to bring home a win for Biden on election night.
“That way I don’t have to stay up too late,” said Obama. “I don’t have to wait for the results through the next day. I want to go to sleep knowing that we’re going to have a president fighting on our behalf.”
Former presidents generally don’t openly criticize their successors, even while campaigning, but Obama has emphasized that Trump is no ordinary presidential successor.
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He blasted Trump’s statements and behavior as “not normal.” He even compared him to the unsavory character, Florida Man.
“You wouldn’t tolerate it from a coworker. You wouldn’t tolerate it from a high school principal. You wouldn’t tolerate it from a coach. You wouldn’t tolerate it from a family member,” Obama said, reciting a litany of Trump’s most outlandish actions. “‘Florida Man wouldn’t even do this stuff. Why are we accepting it from the president of the United States?”
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