Former President Barack Obama returned to the campaign trail on Saturday, ten days before the November 3 midterm elections, with rallies in Cleveland and Detroit. He used both appearances to attack President Donald Trump and to urge Democrats to turn out in races that will decide control of a closely divided Congress.
Obama stumped in Ohio alongside Democratic gubernatorial candidate Amy Acton and Senate candidate Sherrod Brown, then campaigned in Michigan for Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed. In Detroit, he framed the vote as a check on the Trump administration, telling the crowd: “We got to flip that circuit breaker, bring some accountability to this government.”
He accused Trump of corruption, blamed the administration’s Iran strategy for higher oil prices, and mocked the president’s White House renovations, including the new ballroom and the gold decor. “We have never seen a president excel in straight-up grifting, on your dime, like this,” he said in Michigan.
Trump, who has spent weeks campaigning for Republicans and telling supporters to treat the midterms as if he were on the ballot, responded on Saturday by dismissing his predecessor. “Obama was a lousy president,” he said when asked about criticism from Obama and former President Bill Clinton.
The duelling appearances underline how central both men remain to the midterm fight. Obama remains one of the Democrats’ most popular figures, while Trump has made himself the dominant presence in Republican campaigning even though his own name is absent from the ballot.
Source: Reuters
