Former President Barack Obama dusted off his message of “hope” and “change” to ignite the Democratic convention and repeated some of the taunts he has used against Donald Trump for years.
The first black president introduced another candidate with a “funny name,” before comparing Donald Trump to an annoying neighbor while promoting Kamala Harris as his new successor.
He did so while criticizing Trump for “his childish nicknames and his crazy conspiracy theories. This weird obsession with crowd sizes,” he said mockingly, prompting a roar from the crowd at Chicago’s United Center.
It was a line that recalled Trump’s recent bizarre claim that Harris’s large crowd was fake, as well as Trump’s dubious claim to having a larger inaugural crowd than Obama had — not to mention the long-standing jokes about the size of Trump’s hands that Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) briefly referred to on the 2016 campaign trail.
“We all knew what that hand gesture meant @BarackObama,” former CNN anchor Don Lemon posted, interpreting the comment in a more suggestive way.
At a convention that has seen numerous speeches against Trump for his policies and videos released alternating between ridiculing him and calling him a grave threat, Obama said: “We don’t need four more years of bluster and chaos. We’ve seen that movie and we all know the sequel is usually worse,” Obama said to applause.
The former president put a twist on his 2008 campaign slogan and a stamp of approval on Harris and her outlook.
Former President Barack Obama ridiculed Donald Trump’s “bizarre obsession” with crowd sizes in a convention speech where he called for “passing the torch” to Kamala Harris
“Yes we can!” Obama proclaimed.
He brought the convention audience to its feet when he recalled another of his favorite lines: “Don’t boo: vote,” he told the crowd.
“I don’t know about you, but I’m excited,” he said at the start of the campaign, reminding Democrats of the joy he had brought from South Carolina to his historic campaign for the White House. “I feel ready to go,” he added.
Obama joked about the danger of following in his wife Michelle Obama’s footsteps after his impassioned inaugural address, which nearly overshadowed his own with its scathing commentary on Trump.
“Who’s going to tell him that the job he’s currently looking for might be one of those black jobs?” he asked.
The former president then tried his hand at the sharp-witted style of humor that has irritated Trump in the past.
‘Here’s a 78-year-old billionaire who hasn’t stopped complaining about his problems since he rode down the golden escalator nine years ago. It’s been a constant stream of complaints 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 that neighbor who spends all day with his leaf blower outside your window,” he joked. “For a neighbor, that’s exhausting. For a president, it’s just dangerous,” said Obama, who owns large residences in Washington, Chicago and Hawaii.
Obama may have been overshadowed by his wife Michelle Obama, and he joked about the challenge of moving on after her.
Obama’s attacks on Trump and praise for Harris brought the crowd to its feet
He said Trump only sees the president as “a means to an end.”
“He wants the middle class to pay the price for another huge tax cut that would primarily benefit him and his rich friends,” Obama said.
The attacks came after Trump offered some unusually kind words for Obama and Michelle Obama, preempting the avalanche.
Obama’s other mission was to “pass the torch,” and he spent much of his speech praising Kamala Harris.
Obama, who rose to stardom in part because of his own 2004 convention speech, did so first by linking Harris to another unlikely politician: himself.
“I feel hopeful because this convention has always been very good for kids with funny names who believe in a country where anything is possible,” he said near the beginning of his remarks.
“We’re ready for a President Kamala Harris,” he said.
It was another milestone after his former aides helped bring about the extraordinary turnaround at the top of the charts.
Obama praised his former running mate, President Joe Biden, who was on vacation in California 24 hours after his own convention speech, which ran past midnight.
Obama’s advisers were among the key figures who pushed Biden to drop out after their disastrous debate. The episode rekindled old tensions after Obama encouraged Biden not to run in 2016 as Hillary Clinton prepared her own, ultimately unsuccessful, campaign.
Obama called his own decision to choose Biden as his running mate “one of my best,” praising his “empathy and his decency” as well as his “hard-earned stamina,” though it was not enough to carry him from the primary to the convention.
“History will remember Joe Biden as a president who stood up for democracy in a time of great peril. I’m proud to call him my president, but I’m even prouder to call him my friend,” he said.
He praised Biden for “putting aside his own ambition for the good of the country” and said he was a “steady” leader “at a time when the other party had become a cult of personality.”
“The torch has been passed. Now it’s up to all of us to fight for the America we believe in,” Obama said.
Obama, who was an election organizer, also sought to warn the crowd: “Despite all the rallies and the memes, this will still be a close race in a very divided country.” He warned that there would be difficult times ahead.
And the famed orator, who is sometimes accused of being professorial, also hinted at some social commentary: “We seek approval from strangers on our phones … and then wonder why we feel so alone,” Obama said.