President Obama publicly expressed his frustrations about the way the presidential election has gone thus far, telling a crowd in Philadelphia that the campaign is “not a reality show” and Democrats cannot take it for granted that Hillary Clinton will be elected but must fight for it instead.
“We cannot afford to suddenly treat this like a reality show,” Obama said while stumping for Clinton, chiding the press for what he described as simply giving up on holding Donald Trump accountable for misstatements.
The president also sought to reassure Democratic voters that he truly wants Clinton to succeed him in the Oval Office.
“Can I just say, that I am really into electing Hillary Clinton,” he said Tuesday afternoon. “This is not me going through the motions here — I really, really want to elect Hillary Clinton and sometimes guys are surprised by that.”
Obama explained to the crowd that most voters remember the tough fight he had with Clinton in an election primary eight years ago but he has come to appreciate her work ethic, experience and what he described as “her steady judgment.”
“Anybody can pop off — anybody can fire off a tweet,” he said in an obvious reference to Trump’s penchant for personal attacks on Twitter. “But that doesn’t mean you know what it’s like to manage a global crisis.”
Turning to more direct attack lines on Trump, Obama impugned his reputation as a successful businessman, arguing that there are plenty of businessmen in America who have succeeded without “hiding their tax returns or leaving a trail of lawsuits in their wake … people feeling like they got cheated.”
He then characterized the mogul behind Trump Towers as being out of touch with “working folks.”
“Really? This is the guy you want to be the champion for working people — a guy who spent 70 years on this earth showing no support for working people?” he said. “He’s spent most of his life trying to stay away from working people as much as he could — I mean, he wasn’t going to let you on his golf course. He wasn’t going to let you buy his condo.”
When it comes to Trump’s praise for Russian President Vladimir Putin, Obama said just one week ago the GOP nominee went on Russian television “to talk down our military and curry favor” with Putin.
“He loves this guy,” Obama remarked. “Think about what’s happened to the Republican Party — they used to be opposed to Russia and authoritarians and for fighting for freedom and democracy and now their nominee is out there praising this guy, saying he’s a strong leader because he invades smaller countries, jails his opponents and drives his economy into a long recession.”
Obama acknowledged that he “has to do business” with Putin but “I don’t go around saying that he’s my role model.”
“Can you imagine Ronald Reagan saying something like that?” he asked. “[Reagan] called America a shining city on a hill, [Trump] believes it’s a divided crime scene.” He believes that if he scares enough people, he might just scare up enough votes to win this election.”
He then asked the crowd if they minded if he “vented for a second” and went on to grouse about the double standard in the media between their coverage of Trump and Clinton.
When it comes to transparency, he said, “we have one candidate in this race who has released decades of her tax returns, and we have another candidate who has refused to release any at all.”
There is also no comparison in the difference in the work of their personal foundations, he argued.
“We have one candidate whose foundation has saved countless families around the world and the other candidate … took people’s money,” squandered it and then bought a six-foot tall painting of himself, Obama said.
“At least he had the taste not to go for the 10-foot version,” he added.
