Former president Barack Obama returned to the campaign trail Saturday and tore into his successor’s administration.
At a Cleveland rally, he mocked President Donald Trump’s attempts to redecorate the White House and build a new ballroom.
“He seems very focused on home renovations. He should be on HGTV,” Obama said. “He’s got the White House looking like Saddam Hussein opened up a Cheesecake Factory. There’s gold everywhere.”
Democrats have embraced Obama as their most effective closing messenger in the final weeks of the high-stakes midterm campaign, bringing Obama’s star power and sharp wit to counter Trump’s almost daily rallies on the trail.
The Ohio rally is the first of three scheduled rallies headlined by the former president. There, he tried to boost Democratic gubernatorial candidate Amy Acton and Senate candidate Sherrod Brown in toss-up races. Obama heads to Detroit later in the evening to campaign for Michigan’s Democratic candidates, including the Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed. He’ll be in Georgia on Wednesday.
In Ohio, Obama compared his presidency with Trump’s policies, including on immigration and Iran. He ridiculed Trump’s love for tariffs, especially on Canada.
“These are the people who gave us maple syrup and Martin Short,” Obama said. “Canadians are the nicest people.”
Obama did not reserve his barbs for Trump. He said the current administration was filled with “unserious people,” such as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
“He’s very focused on very important matters like the jawlines and testosterone levels of our troops and live-streaming executions, because that’s how he thinks you cultivate that manly, warrior spirit,” Obama said. “How much time do you think this defense secretary spends looking at himself in the mirror in the morning?”
Obama rallies next with El-Sayed, a former public health official in a tight race for one of country’s most critical seats to winning control of the Senate.
El-Sayed has become a central character in the midterms, a pugnacious champion of populist ideas that challenge his own party and the frequent target of Republican scorn.
El-Sayed has said Obama’s 2008 speech to the Democratic National Convention helped him see a possibility for himself in politics, and he posted on X last weekthat Obama “showed me something in myself I might never have seen without him.”
But El-Sayed has come under scrutiny for comments criticizingObama for not making more progress, including Obama’s signature health care plan, the Affordable Care Act. In an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” El-Sayed said he was younger and angry when he made those comments and that Obama “did his best with the circumstances he had.”
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