He exclaimed as he took the stage here it was “good to be back on the campaign trail”, a sentiment that was returned by loud cheers by the crowd of hundreds. Bill Allison of the Sunlight Foundation told the New York Post that the Foundation was “a slush fund for the Clintons”.
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“He loves this guy”.
But I’m also not going to be bullied or intimidated by the kind of rhetoric and demagoguery coming from the Trump campaign. “I was surprised that Hillary stepped down to Trump’s level”.
White House spokesman Josh Earnest said Obama doesn’t feel like he needs to help Clinton with damage control.
Speaking in Maryland Monday, Trump said he was shocked to hear Clinton “attack, slander, smear and demean these wonderful, incredible people who are supporting our campaign”.
Trump has mined this fertile line of attack repeatedly in the days since Clinton made the comments at a NY fundraiser with liberal donors on Friday night. Her campaign said she had “overheated”, but later revealed that she had been diagnosed Friday with pneumonia. And Donald Trump says stuff everyday that used to be considered as disqualifying for being president. “And yet because he says it over and over and over again the press just gives up”. “Think about what’s happened in the Republican Party”, Obama said. “They used to be opposed to Russian Federation and authoritarianism”.
“This isn’t Abraham Lincoln’s Republican Party”, Obama added later.
“I think, in retrospect, we could have handled it better in terms of providing more information more quickly”. “That is not the America I know”.
A pro-Clinton group, Priorities USA, began airing a new ad this week highlighting some of Trump’s more provocative comments, including his aggressive references to protesters, such as, “I’d like to punch him in the face”.
Clinton’s faux pas has been likened to incendiary remarks of past presidential campaigns: Barack Obama’s claim in 2008 that small-town, blue-collar Americans were “bitter” and “cling to guns or religion”, or Mitt Romney’s damaging misstep in 2012 that 47 per cent of Americans were “dependent upon government” and believed they were “victims”. Loathe to engage directly in bitter partisan politics, the first lady is more likely to spell out a more affirmative case for Clinton, according to aides.
The remarks were the closest Obama came to mentioning Clinton’s rough weekend, during which she disparaged “half” of Trump supporters and then backtracked somewhat on her remarks.
“‘I was opposed to the war in Iraq, ‘” Obama said, quoting Trump. “He’d be in trouble”.
“What sets Hillary apart is that through it all she just keeps on going and she doesn’t stop caring and she doesn’t stop trying and she never stops fighting for us even if we haven’t always appreciated it”, Obama said.
Obama’s campaign appearance at an outdoor plaza in front of the Philadelphia Museum of Art was his third for Clinton, including his speech at the Democratic National Convention, also in Philadelphia. In Philadelphia, he attended a closed fundraiser for the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee. While past presidents have faced similar obligations in the waning days of their tenures, Obama is more popular – and thus in higher demand as a campaigner than his most recent predecessors.
The president’s day job has kept him from being a campaign fixture. Obama had business at the White House Monday evening when he met with congressional leaders, and is due to meet Burmese State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi in the Oval Office on Wednesday.
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Barack Obama is campaigning hard against Donald Trump. Already the President’s schedule is filling up.
