Obama Just Eviscerated Trump In A 19-Min Speech That’ll Go Down As One Of The All-Time Greats

Former US President Barack Obama has finally – finally – given current President Donald Trump the dressing down he deserves. It was a little bit glorious. It might bring a tear to your eye. Obama was by no means a perfect president, but compared to the current administration, he might as well be Jesus.

Delivering a live address on the third night of the 2020 Democratic National Convention, Obama went scorched earth.

He slammed Trump as having “no interest” in the job of presidency outside of helping himself and his friends, as treating the office as nothing more than “one more reality show” to get the “attention he craves”.

“I have sat in the Oval Office with both of the men who are running for president,” Obama said, referring obviously to his former VP and now Democratic nominee Joe Biden.

“I never expected that my successor would embrace my vision or continue my policies. I did hope, for the sake of our country, that Donald Trump might show some interest in taking the job seriously; that he might come to feel the weight of the office and discover some reverence for the democracy that had been placed in his care.

“But he never did. For close to four years now, he’s shown no interest in putting in the work; no interest in finding common ground; no interest in using the awesome power of his office to help anyone but himself and his friends; no interest in treating the presidency as anything but one more reality show that he can use to get the attention he craves.

“Donald Trump hasn’t grown into the job because he can’t. And the consequences of that failure are severe. 170,000 Americans dead. Millions of jobs gone while those at the top take in more than ever. Our worst impulses unleashed, our proud reputation around the world badly diminished, and our democratic institutions threatened like never before.”

It was eviscerating, and it’ll go down in the history books.

It is a rare, rare rebuke for a former President to attack a sitting one, much less his incumbent. They might be on different sides of politics (or as much as you CAN be on a different side by the time you rise to the top), but all the former presidents tend to avoid criticising each other once they’re done with politics. They have a little ex presidents club, where they hang out and play golf and attend the funerals of various dignitaries.

Obama using the biggest stage now available to spell out exactly why Trump is unfit for a second term? Huge.

It’s made quite the stir online – as it was intended to, of course.

https://twitter.com/aterkel/status/1296288286097444865

It echoes Michelle Obama‘s speech yesterday. Michelle has a famous phrase: “When they go low, we go high.” She debuted it at the 2016 convention, in response to Trump’s frequent outbursts of bullying, vitriol, and downright nastiness.

She didn’t namecheck Trump in 2016. She did in 2020.

“Over the past four years, a lot of people have asked me: ‘When others are going so low, does going high still really work?’” Michelle said yesterday.

“My answer: going high is the only thing that works, because when we go low, when we use those same tactics of degrading and dehumanising others, we just become part of the ugly noise that’s drowning out everything else.

“So let me be as honest and clear as I possibly can. Donald Trump is the wrong president for our country. He has had more than enough time to prove that he can do the job, but he is clearly in over his head. He cannot meet this moment. He simply cannot be who we need him to be for us. It is what it is.”

Trump is taking all this about as well as can be expected:

We can probably expect a few more all-caps tweets before this is done.

Here’s Obama’s speech in full:

Good evening, everybody. As you’ve seen by now, this isn’t a normal convention. It’s not a normal time. So tonight, I want to talk as plainly as I can about the stakes in this election. Because what we do these next 76 days will echo through generations to come.

I’m in Philadelphia, where our Constitution was drafted and signed. It wasn’t a perfect document. It allowed for the inhumanity of slavery and failed to guarantee women – and even men who didn’t own property – the right to participate in the political process. But embedded in this document was a North Star that would guide future generations; a system of representative government – a democracy – through which we could better realise our highest ideals. Through civil war and bitter struggles, we improved this Constitution to include the voices of those who’d once been left out. And gradually, we made this country more just, more equal, and more free.

The one Constitutional office elected by all of the people is the presidency. So at minimum, we should expect a president to feel a sense of responsibility for the safety and welfare of all 330 million of us – regardless of what we look like, how we worship, who we love, how much money we have – or who we voted for.

But we should also expect a president to be the custodian of this democracy. We should expect that regardless of ego, ambition, or political beliefs, the president will preserve, protect, and defend the freedoms and ideals that so many Americans marched for and went to jail for; fought for and died for.

I have sat in the Oval Office with both of the men who are running for president. I never expected that my successor would embrace my vision or continue my policies. I did hope, for the sake of our country, that Donald Trump might show some interest in taking the job seriously; that he might come to feel the weight of the office and discover some reverence for the democracy that had been placed in his care.

But he never did. For close to four years now, he’s shown no interest in putting in the work; no interest in finding common ground; no interest in using the awesome power of his office to help anyone but himself and his friends; no interest in treating the presidency as anything but one more reality show that he can use to get the attention he craves.

Donald Trump hasn’t grown into the job because he can’t. And the consequences of that failure are severe. 170,000 Americans dead. Millions of jobs gone while those at the top take in more than ever. Our worst impulses unleashed, our proud reputation around the world badly diminished, and our democratic institutions threatened like never before.

Now, I know that in times as polarised as these, most of you have already made up your mind. But maybe you’re still not sure which candidate you’ll vote for – or whether you’ll vote at all. Maybe you’re tired of the direction we’re headed, but you can’t see a better path yet, or you just don’t know enough about the person who wants to lead us there.

So let me tell you about my friend Joe Biden.

Twelve years ago, when I began my search for a vice president, I didn’t know I’d end up finding a brother. Joe and I came from different places and different generations. But what I quickly came to admire about him is his resilience, born of too much struggle; his empathy, born of too much grief. Joe’s a man who learned – early on – to treat every person he meets with respect and dignity, living by the words his parents taught him: “No one’s better than you, Joe, but you’re better than nobody.”

That empathy, that decency, the belief that everybody counts – that’s who Joe is.

When he talks with someone who’s lost her job, Joe remembers the night his father sat him down to say that he’d lost his.

When Joe listens to a parent who’s trying to hold it all together right now, he does it as the single dad who took the train back to Wilmington each and every night so he could tuck his kids into bed.

When he meets with military families who’ve lost their hero, he does it as a kindred spirit; the parent of an American soldier; somebody whose faith has endured the hardest loss there is.

For eight years, Joe was the last one in the room whenever I faced a big decision. He made me a better president – and he’s got the character and the experience to make us a better country.

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