President Obama unveiled four themes during his first outing for Hillary Clinton Tuesday that will likely comprise his final stump speech as a politician: Clinton’s qualifications, Obama’s record, the GOP’s failure to help the middle class, and plenty of sarcastic jabs at presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump.
Obama opened his lengthy remarks in Charlotte, N.C., ticking off all the ways his former secretary of state impresses him and how his one-time political rival earned his admiration.
“[T]here has never been any man or woman more qualified for this office than Hillary Clinton — ever,” Obama said. “And that’s the truth.”
During their lengthy 2008 primary battle royal, “I had a chance to see up close just how smart she was, and just how prepared she was — especially since I had to debate her a couple dozen times,” Obama recounted. “And let’s be clear, she beat me … at least the first half, and then I just barely could play her to a draw. I always had to be on my game because she knew every fact and she knew every detail.”
While serving as his first secretary of state, Obama “saw how deeply she believes in the things she fights for. And I saw how you can count on her and how she won’t waver and she won’t back down,” he said. “And she will not quit, no matter how difficult the challenge and no matter how fierce the opposition.”
Although he mainly let Clinton recount his achievements during her introduction, he squeezed in a little horn tooting of his own, implying that Clinton is best suited to follow through on what he started.
“As Hillary mentioned — look, when I came into office, things were not in very good shape you will recall,” Obama said. “We were losing 800,000 jobs a month pursuing, by the way, the same proposals that the Republicans are still peddling. We’ve cut the unemployment rate in half. Manufacturing jobs have grown for the first time since another President Clinton was in office. And, by the way… we cut our deficit by nearly 75 percent.”
Obama and his aides continually frame the upcoming election as a choice between building on Obama’s progress and watching the nation backslide.
Before Tuesday, Obama talked generically about how a Democrat is better suited for that task. But now he can talk more directly about how Clinton is the right successor and best suited to take over.
“And this November, in this election, you are going to have a very clear choice to make between two fundamentally different visions of where America should go,” Obama said. “And this isn’t even really a choice between left and right, or Democrat or Republican. This is a choice between whether we are going to cling to some imaginary past, or whether we’re going to reach for the future.”
And as expected, Obama couldn’t resist taking shots at Trump, although he was careful never to say the candidate’s name.
“Everybody can tweet, but nobody actually knows what it takes to do the job until you’ve sat behind the desk,” Obama mocked, chiding Trump for his penchant of taking to Twitter for everything. “I mean, Sasha tweets, but she doesn’t think that she thereby should be sitting behind the desk,” he said referencing his youngest daughter and the presidential desk in the Oval Office.
“I know the other guy talks about making America great again,” he said, attacking Trump’s campaign slogan. “America is really great.”
“[T]he rest of the world thinks we’re pretty darn great. And, by the way, you can look that up. That’s a fact. That’s not like just something I just made up and tweeted,” he said, citing surveys proving the contrast.
“They poll people so you actually know what people think,” he said. “You don’t just assert it … [and] part of the reason is because we had an outstanding secretary of state.”
He insinuated that Trump is too thin-skinned to be president, citing his refusal to allow Washington Post reporters to attend his events.
“This is not a reality show; this is reality,” Obama said. “And being president of the United States means … when a crisis hits, you can’t just walk off the set. You can’t fire the scriptwriter; you can’t be reckless.”
