Former President Barack Obama burst onto the midterm election campaign this Saturday with the strongest attacks remembered against President Donald Trump, whom he labeled as responsible for an “incompetence like we haven't seen in modern times” during a rally in Cleveland, Ohio.
In an intervention lasting about 40 minutes —his first appearance at a midterm campaign event— Obama described Trump's second term as "two years of chaos, cruelty, and corruption" and asserted that no president had "excelled so much in pure and simple plunder".
The former president directly held Trump responsible for the rise in oil prices due to the war with Iran: "This is the reason why the price of oil has gone up. No one disputes it," reported The New York Times.
He also pointed to the remodeling projects of the White House with golden decorations to portray Trump as a leader disconnected from the real needs of the citizens. “The White House looks like Saddam Hussein opened a Cheesecake Factory. Gold everywhere,” he said amidst laughter from the audience.
About the accumulation of wealth of the president since taking office, Obama was equally direct: "There is one thing he seems to focus on, besides home reform. And that is how to enrich himself, his family, and his close associates".
Hours after the event in Ohio, Obama traveled to Detroit, Michigan, where he endorsed the Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed and gubernatorial candidate Jocelyn Benson in front of more than 4,300 people, on the first day of early in-person voting in that state, according to the WSJ.
While Obama was speaking in Michigan, Trump took the stage in Perry, Georgia, in an unusual simultaneous crossover between the two presidents. Trump labeled Obama a "bad president," repeatedly referred to him by his full name—"Barack Hussein Obama"—and falsely claimed that the event in Michigan had been "empty."
The rivalry between the two runs deep. Trump was the main proponent of the false and racist theory that Obama was not born in the United States, a push that in 2011 led the White House to release the actual birth certificate.
In Detroit, Obama referenced that episode while defending candidate El-Sayed, whom Republicans question due to his Muslim faith: "We've seen this movie before: I starred in it. I have the literal birth certificate to prove it. It didn't work with me. Not in Michigan. It won't work with Abdul."
Last June, Obama had already pointed out that Trump had an "obsession" with him and that he occupied a "suite" in his head. Trump, for his part, responded this Saturday that Obama’s criticism is a sign of Republican strength: "We have defeated them. When I started, we had a much weaker Republican Party. Then I ran, and I won."
The electoral context is crucial: the elections on November 3 will renew 435 seats in the House of Representatives and 35 in the Senate, with Republicans starting from narrow majorities. Trump's approval rating is between 31% and 36% according to various polls, and 65% of Americans blame him for high prices, based on an AP-NORC survey from October 23.
Trump, who voted early in Florida before his rally in Georgia, insisted that Democrats are "dangerous extremists" and urged his supporters to "pretend that I am on the ballot." "We are in America's golden era," he proclaimed to his supporters in Perry.
Obama also criticized the Republican gubernatorial candidate from Ohio, Vivek Ramaswamy, for a campaign ad that used the estranged mother of his Democratic opponent, Amy Acton. "There is a decency we should expect from our public officials," said the former president. "I don't know what has happened for standards of behavior to have fallen so low."
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