‘I fell asleep’: Donald Trump shrugs off speech by Barack Obama attacking him
‘I’m sorry, I watched it but I fell asleep. I found he’s very good. Very good for sleeping’
Ending months of self-imposed restraint, former US president Barack Obama delivered a blistering critique of President Trump and Republican politics, one that prompted a backhanded dismissal by the man who now occupies the Oval Office.
Over the course of an hour-long address Friday, Obama left little doubt about the severity of his concerns over Trump’s approach, which he referred to obliquely as “this political darkness”.
He compared Trump to foreign demagogues who exploit “a politics of fear and resentment and retrenchment,” appeal to racial nationalism and then plunder their countries while promising to fight corruption.
“This is not normal. These are extraordinary times and they are dangerous times,” Obama said during the speech at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
“But here is the good news: in two months we have the chance – not the certainty but the chance – to restore some semblance of sanity to our politics.”
Both parties are urging their core supporters to get to the polls for the November 6 midterm elections, when Democrats need to pick up 23 seats in the House of Representatives and two seats in the Senate to gain majorities in Congress and slam the brakes on Trump’s agenda.
