Barack Obama took Donald Trump & his billionaire pals to task today in a rare display of bare knuckles political pugilism from the 44th POTUS.
A series of jabs and blows that made it look a lot like a 2008 Saturday for Obama on cable news – with some of the spirit of Bernie Sanders and AOC thrown in. In a final weekend push for Democrats gubernatorial candidates in Virginia and New Jersey, Obama tore into Trump with a ferocity rarely seen in public by the ex-POTUS in over a decade.
“I’s like every day is Halloween, except it’s all tricks and no treats,” a clearly pumped Obama told a packed rally in Norfolk, VA of the scarring effects and “dangers to democracy” of Trump’s second term.
Coming the day after Halloween, with polling leading contender Abigail Spanberger on-stage, the usually circumspect ex-president took a tone and approach that mainly leaderless Democrats have been pleading for over the months since Trump and his MAGA gang returned to the White House. Carried live on MSNBC, CNN and C-Span, and barely referred to on Fox News, Obama’s speech in Virginia was followed by more remarks in Newark NJ, where Rep. Mikie Sherrill has a razor thin lead over Republican Jack Ciattarelli.
No surprise, like they had in his Virginia remarks earlier, MSNBC and CNN went live to that New Jersey speech by Obama, which started off with the Trump bashing statement that “our country and our politics are in a pretty dark place right now.” To cheers and crowd howls of love, Obama added: “It’s hard to know where to start, because every day this White House offers up a fresh batch of lawlessness, carelessness, and mean-spirtedness , and just plain old craziness.”
Throughout the day, on the 32nd day of the federal government shutdown, the soon-to-be MSNOW previewed Obama’s appearance in the Garden State. Playing to a very different audience, Fox ran live footage of protesters outside an ICE detention center near Chicago, among other non-Obama segments and went after leading NYC Mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani.
Over on the Murdoch family owned FNC, the lack of Obama coverage might have had something with what the former president had to say.
“I worry about the growing concentration of economic power in this country, with just a handful of mega billionaires and companies controlling what we see and what we hear,” Obama said in Virginia earlier on Saturday.
While not naming the likes of Rupert Murdoch, Paramount owner David Ellison and all the companies, including MSNBC-owner Comcast, that have donated to Trump’s new pricey White House ballroom, Obama continued: “And I worry about how much that economic power distorts the political process. I worry about how readily not just business leaders but others with influence in law firms and universities have been willing to bend the knee.”
Called “the closer” by CNN’s Jessica Dean on Saturday, Obama in New Jersey, as he had in the home of Thomas Jefferson, went after “shambolic” Trump’s racist themed masked ICE raids and abductions., the “caste system in America” and the notion of a king in the land of George Washington.
Taking a swipe at the GOP ruled Congress and the on-going shutdown, the self-declared “hope and change guy” Obama also called out Robert Kennedy Jr’s quack science, Deputy WH Chief of Staff Stephen Miller calling Democrats domestic terrorists, and Trump’s vengeance polices and prosecutions. Sounding a lot like the growing progressive wing of his party, the traditionally centrist two-term Democrat spotlighted “some of Trump’s billionaire friends and the Trump family grifting off “foreign nationals and rich folks looking to gte in the President’s good graces.”
“As for the president, he has been focused on critical issues like paving over the Rose Garden so folks don’t get mud on their shoes, and gold-plating the Oval Office and building a $300m ballroom,” Obama told the more than 10,000-strong crowd in Norfolk. “So Virginia, here’s the good news. If you can’t visit a doctor, don’t worry, he will save you a dance.”
With just days to go until the off-year November 4 election, Obama also was reported to have reached out to Mamdani in a supportive 30-minute phone call, as first reported by the New York Times. While more of the Democratic establishment has come to support the 34-year-old State Assemblyman in recent weeks, Obama, who has filmed ads for California’s redistricting Prop 50 initiative, hasn’t put his powerful thumb on the scale in the five boroughs, until now.
Aides to Obama did not respond to request for comment on the Mamdani call, but spokesperson for the candidate confirmed the conversation to Deadline Saturday. “Zohran Mamdani appreciated President Obama’s words of support and their conversation on the importance of bringing a new kind of politics to our city,” they said.
On the other hand, a Florida golfing Trump was nowhere to been seen on the hustle for Republican candidates today. Instead, the increasingly unpopular incumbent instead spent the hours he wasn’t on the links online pitching his 60 Minutes sit-down Sunday, potentially invading Nigeria, overturning the Senate filibuster and raging against Seth Meyers. Trump made no mention of Obama, at least not yet.
