President Obama, in a thinly veiled snub against Donald Trump, said Saturday that his rallies in 2008 dwarfed the GOP front-runner’s by double.
“Sometimes you hear folks say, oh, that rally is big,” Obama said. “I say, I don’t know,” he added to laughter in applause at a Democratic gathering in Texas on Saturday. “We had some pretty big rallies.”
Around the same time, Trump was in Ohio boasting that his rivals in the GOP presidential race have had nothing near the turnout at his rallies. He bragged that at Friday night’s planned rally, 25,000 were to attend before he decided to cancel the event for fear of violence.
But the president seems to think 25,000 isn’t much to brag about. “In 2008, we had rallies with 50,000, 80,000, 100,000 people,” Obama said. “I’m not bragging, I’m just saying we had some big rallies.”
“I’m just saying.”
Obama did not mention any candidates by name, but it was pretty easy to see where his attention was being focused.
“And our leaders, those who aspire to be our leaders should be trying to bring us together, and not turning us against one another,” he said. They should “speak out against violence, and reject efforts to spread fear or turn us against one another. And if they refuse to do that, they don’t deserve our support.
“The best leaders, the leaders who are worthy of our votes, remind us that even in a country as big and diverse and inclusive as ours, what we’ve got in common is far more important than what divides any of us.”
