President Trump claims former President Barack Obama’s recent campaigning for Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden is actually helping him.
Trump made the statement on Twitter Thursday morning, just one day after Obama held his first in-person campaign event for the former vice president in Philadelphia.
“Obama is campaigning for us. Every time he speaks, people come over to our side. He didn’t even want to endorse Sleepy Joe. Did so long after primaries were over!” Trump tweeted.
Obama is campaigning for us. Every time he speaks, people come over to our side. He didn’t even want to endorse Sleepy Joe. Did so long after primaries were over!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 22, 2020
The president followed a similar line of attack during a Wednesday evening rally he held in Gastonia, North Carolina. He highlighted that Obama waited until this spring to endorse Biden, only doing so once it was clear that he would become the nominee. Early during his campaign, Biden claimed he asked Obama to hold off on the endorsement.
During Obama’s campaign swing through Pennsylvania, a critical battleground state, he made a number of stops and spoke at a drive-in rally, urging people to cast their votes for Biden. He drew a contrast between Trump’s behavior and that of Biden and his running mate, California Sen. Kamala Harris.
“With Joe and Kamala at the helm, you’re not going to have to think about the crazy things they said every day. And that’s worth a lot,” Obama said. “You’re not going to have to argue about them every day. It just won’t be so exhausting. You might be able to have a Thanksgiving dinner without having an argument.”
Obama also tore into Trump’s response to the coronavirus pandemic, which has been caused more than 222,000 deaths in the United States.
“We literally left this White House a pandemic playbook that would have shown them how to respond before the virus reached our shores. They probably used it to, I don’t know, prop up a wobbly table somewhere,” Obama said.
With only 12 days to go until Election Day, both campaigns have been increasing the number of events for the candidates and their surrogates. Polls show Biden leading nationally and in many battleground states. A RealClearPolitics national average of polls has Biden with a 7.7-point lead over Trump.
