Former President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama went for Donald Trump’s jugular in back-to-back speeches at the Democratic National Convention, even as the Republican former president finally showed a moment of decency toward them.
The powerful former first couple’s double-whammy Tuesday night in Chicago came just hours after the Republican nominee unexpectedly praised his predecessor after years of trying to delegitimize him.
“I happen to like him. I respect him and I respect his wife,” Trump said in an interview with CNN on Tuesday, just hours before his comments. He also called Obama a “fine gentleman.”
It was a sharp turn for Trump, who spent years attacking Obama and promoting the “birtherism” conspiracy theory that questioned whether the nation’s first black president was born in the United States.
Former President Barack Obama joins Michelle onstage for the second night of the Democratic National Convention, where both took scathing shots at former President Trump.
Neither Barack nor Michelle Obama held back as they launched a series of brutal attacks on the former president, with the former first lady delivering what may be one of the most devastating remarks of the entire convention.
“Who’s going to tell you that the job you’re currently looking for might be one of those ‘black jobs’?” he said to thunderous applause at the United Center.
Former President Obama also sparked an Internet frenzy with a hand gesture that suggested he was making a crude joke about his successor by joking about the Republican presidential nominee’s “weird obsession with crowd sizes.”
This was not the former first couple who graciously welcomed the Trumps into the White House after the 2016 election, despite Trump’s attacks on them.
Trump said in an interview Tuesday that he “respects” former President Obama after years of criticizing and promoting conspiracy theories about his predecessor.
The Obamas welcome the Trumps to the White House on Jan. 20, 2017, after the Republican won the 2016 election. On Tuesday, Trump said he respected Obama in a rare moment of praise after criticizing him for years.
But his scathing response to the former Republican president’s bid for a second term in the White House was met with thunderous approval from Democrats.
The former first lady criticized the ex-president, saying that for years Trump…‘He did everything he could to try to make people afraid of us.’
“His limited and narrow view of the world made him feel threatened by the existence of two hard-working, highly educated and successful people who also happened to be black,” he said.
She accused him of being the same old scammer and harshly criticized him.‘Ugly, misogynistic and racist lies.’
Michelle Obama made a devastating statement during her convention speech about Trump: “Who’s going to tell him that the job he’s currently looking for might be one of those ‘black jobs’?”
Former President Obama had the crowd roaring and the Internet going wild when he appeared to make a crude joke about Trump and his “weird obsession” with crowd size.
In his own remarks moments later, Obama criticized Trump. for ‘complaining about his problems since he came down the golden escalator nine years ago.
“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.
The 44th president compared Trump to a neighbor who uses a relief blower every day: “f“From a neighbor, that’s exhausting. From a president, it’s just dangerous.”
The gloves were off and not even Obama was making his own the first lady’s words at the 2016 convention when she said “when they go low, we go high.”
Michelle Obama warned that Vice President Kamala Harris, the first woman of color nominated to head a major party’s presidential ticket, was about to face the same criticism she and her husband faced.
“Now, unfortunately, we know what’s coming next. We know that people are going to do everything they can to distort the truth,” he said before lashing out at Trump.
Michelle Obama greets her husband on stage after his speech at the Democratic National Convention yesterday
On Tuesday night, he urged Democrats to work “as if our lives depend on it” ahead of Election Day and praised “my girl” Harris.
Her speech came just a day after President Biden spoke at the convention following his dramatic exit from the presidential race just a month ago, but the former first lady did not mention him. She focused solely on moving forward.
President Obama mentioned Biden and called his decision to choose the current president to serve as his vice president in 2008 one of his best decisions.
“History will remember Joe Biden as an exceptional president who stood up for democracy at a time of great peril,” he said. “And I’m proud to call him my president, but I’m even prouder to call him my friend.”
From there Obama directed his anger at the former president.
“There’s been a constant stream of complaints and grievances that’s actually gotten worse now that he’s afraid of losing to Kamala,” she said. “There’s the childish name-calling, the crazy conspiracy theories, this weird obsession with crowd sizes.”
Obama accused Trump of seeing power as “‘nothing more than a means to their ends.’
Former President Donald Trump campaigns in Howell, Michigan, on Aug. 20, 2024, just hours before the Obamas were scheduled to speak at the Democratic National Convention.
Before claiming to respect Obama on Tuesday, Trump over the years has called his predecessor everything from a “disaster” and a “catastrophe” to falsely claiming Obama was not born in the United States.
He also spent his four years in office trying to undo some of Obama’s biggest legislative achievements, the most prominent of which was the attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare.
Trump responded to the harsh criticism he received at the convention in a conservative radio interview Wednesday morning.
“I was mentioned at the little party the Democrats are having in Chicago, and it’s pretty sad,” Trump said on the Hugh Hewitt show in response to a question about the “rhetoric” being used against him and the recent assassination attempt.
“These people are out of control and they are ruining our nation. Our nation is going to hell,” he said.
