Former President Barack Obama dusted off his ‘hope’ and ‘change’ message to fire up the Democratic convention and rolled out some of the mockery he has deployed against Donald Trump for years.
The first black president pitched another candidate with a ‘funny name’ – before comparing Donald Trump to an annoying neighbor while promoting Kamala Harris as a new successor.
He did so while tearing into Trump for ‘the childish nicknames and crazy conspiracy theories. This weird obsession with crowd sizes,’ he said mockingly, earning a roar from the crowd at the United Center in Chicago.
It was a line that brought to mind Trump’s recent bizarre claim that a large Harris crowd was fake, as well Trump’s dubious claim to have had a larger inaugural crowd than Obama got – not to mention long running jokes about the size of Trump’s hands that Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) briefly latched onto in the 2016 campaign.
‘We all knew what that hand gesture meant @BarackObama,’ posted former CNN host Don Lemon, taking the remark in a more suggestive way.
In a convention where a string of speeches have gone after Trump for his policies and videos have alternated between ridiculing him and calling him a grave threat, Obama weighed in. ‘We don’t need four more years of bluster and chaos. We’ve seen that movie – and we all know that the sequel is usually worse,’ Obama said to applause.
The former president gave a twist to his 2008 campaign slogan and a seal of approval for Harris and her prospect.
Former President Barack Obama ridiculed Donald Trump’s ‘weird obsession’ with crowd sizes in a convention speech where he called for ‘passing the torch’ to Kamala Harris
‘Yes she can!’ Obama proclaimed.
He had the convention crowd on its feet when he brought back other favorite lines. ‘Don’t boo: vote,’ he told the crowd.
‘I don’t know about you but I’m feeling fired up,’ he said early on, reminding Democrats of the cheer that made it from South Carolina to his historic White House run. ‘I am feeling ready to go,’ he added.
Obama joked about the peril of following wife Michelle Obama after her barnburner opening speech, which nearly upstaged his own with her biting quip about Trump.
‘Who’s going to tell him the job he’s currently seeking might be one of those black jobs?’ she said.
Then, the former president tried his brand of sharp humor that has famously gotten under Trump’s skin in the past.
‘Here’s a 78 year old billionaire who has not stopped whining about his problems since he rode down his golden escalator nine years ago. It’s been a constant stream of gripes and grievances that’s actually gotten worse now that he’s afraid of losing to Kamala.’
‘The other day, I heard someone compare Trump to this neighbor who keeps running his leaf blower outside your window every minute of the day,’ he quipped. ‘From a neighbor, that’s exhausting. From a president, it’s just dangerous,’ said Obama, who owns large homes in Washington, Chicago and Hawaii.
Obama may have been upstaged by his wife Michelle Obama, and joked about the challenge of going on after her
Obama’s attacks on Trump and praise of Harris had the crowd on its feet
He said Trump only considers the president ‘a means to an ends.’
‘He wants the middle class to pay the price for another huge tax cut that would mostly help him and his rich friends,’ Obama said.
The slams came Trump gave some unsually kinds words for Obama and Michelle Obama, getting ahead of the onslaught.
Obama’s other mission was to ‘pass the torch,’ and he spent much of his speech building up Kamala Harris.
Obama, who launched to stardom in part on his own 2004 convention speech, did so at first by linking Harris to another unlikely politician: himself.
‘I’m feeling hopeful because this convention has always been pretty good to kids with funny names who believe in a country where anything is possible,’ he said near the top of his remarks.
‘We are ready for a President Kamala Harris,’ he said.
It was another seal after his former aides helped bring about the extraordinary change at the top of the ticket.
Obama gushed about former sidekick President Joe Biden, who was on vacation in California 24 hours after his own convention speech, which ran past midnight.
Obama’s aides were among the crucial figures pushing for Biden to get out after his debate disaster. The episode brought back old tensions after Obama encouraged Biden not to run in 2016 as Hillary Clinton prepared her own ultimately unsuccessful run.
Obama called his own decision to pick Biden as his running mate ‘one of my best,’ praising his ’empathy and his decency,’ as well as his ‘hard-earned resilience,’ although it wasn’t enough to get him from the primaries through to the convention.
‘History will remember Joe Biden as a president who defended democracy at a moment of great danger. I am proud to call him my president, but even prouder to call him my friend,’ he said.
He hailed Biden for ‘putting his own ambition aside for the sake of the country,’ and said he was a ‘steady’ leader ‘at a time when the other party had turned into a cult of personality.’
‘The torch has been passed. now it is up for all of us to fight for the American we believe in,’ said Obama.
A former organizer, Obama tried to caution the crowd as well, telling them that ‘for all the rallies and the memes, this will still be a tight race in a closely divided country.’ He warned there would be low points ahead.
And the famed orator sometimes accused of being professorial also slipped in some social commentary. ‘We chase the approval of starngers on our phones . .. .and then we wonder why we feel so alone,’ Obama said.
