Former President Barack Obama delivered stinging rebuke of his character and performance during a South Florida campaign stop on Saturday, pivoted to praise for Joe Biden, then returned to mocking Donald Trump as weak and thin skinned.
Besides offering detailed criticism on critical issues of the coronavirus and the economy and ridiculing Trump’s foibles, Obama said the times are serious — and he implored Floridians to vote. The Miami-Dade County visit, on the first weekend day of early voting in Florida, was only the second Obama campaign swing of the fall campaign — illustrating high stakes in the ultra-close contest in the Sunshine State.
For his fans, Obama delivered, peppering his speech with references important to Florida voters and with updated comments on developments this week in the Trump-Biden presidential contest.
Obama suggested that attacks on Biden being deployed in South Florida are ridiculous. “Listening to the Republicans, you’d think Joe was more communist than the Castros. Don’t fall for that garbage,” he said. Given Biden’s long public life, “I think folks would know if he was a secret socialist.”
And he spoke to the growing number of Puerto Ricans who live and vote in Florida.
“When a hurricane devastates Puerto Rico, a president is supposed to help it rebuild, not toss paper towels and withhold billions of dollars in aid until just before an election,” Obama said, faulting Trump’s response to Hurricane Maria in 2017.
He pointed to news accounts that suggested Trump mused about selling Puerto Rico. But, he said, things could be even worse, pointing to reports Trump asked if a nuclear device could be used to stop hurricanes. “At least he didn’t do that. A nuclear hurricane seems as if it would have been bad,” Obama said, adding that Trump’s foibles would be funny if the consequences weren’t so serious.
His most scorching criticism concerned the coronavirus. Obama said Trump bungled the response from the beginning and still doesn’t have a plan as the pandemic continues and the nation is seeing a new spike in numbers.
“He doesn’t have a plan. He doesn’t even acknowledge the reality of what’s taking place all across the country,” Obama said. “Donald Trump isn’t going to protect all of us. He can’t even take the basic steps to protect himself.” He added that Trump has done nothing “other than screw this thing up” — and offer suggestions such as people injecting themselves with bleach.
On the economy, he said Trump is claiming credit for pre-pandemic trends that he inherited. “He wants full credit for the economy he inherited and zero blame for the pandemic he ignored,” Obama said. The only people who are better off under Trump are billionaires who got tax cuts.
The Biden campaign has increasingly turned to drive-in car rallies for socially distanced events during the coronavirus — Biden held one in Miramar on Oct. 13 — where horn-honking takes the place of applause. Saturday’s event attracted some 280 cars and 400 people, the Biden campaign said.
Another concession to the pandemic came at the end of Obama’s 47-minutes on stage. There was no hand-shaking by the former president.
Obama’s visit was part of the Biden campaign’s effort to increase enthusiasm and get every potential voter from key voting blocs to the polls in Florida. Obama was deployed strategically. His main event was a drive-in car rally at Florida International University’s Biscayne Bay campus in North Miami, a city with a large Haitian American population.
Earlier, Obama stopped at a Biden campaign office in Miami Springs, which has a large Hispanic population. A handful of volunteers were about to start door-to-door canvassing.
“I just want you guys to know that you’re doing amazing work,” he told them. “If you bring Florida home, this thing’s over.”
Some of the biggest crowd-pleasers at the drive-in rally came from Obama’s mocking of Trump. Trump has had a tough week, Obama said, his voice tinged with sarcasm and faux concern. “Everybody’s been very unfair to Donald Trump this week.”
Trump isn’t anywhere near as tough as he makes himself out to be and his supporters believe, Obama said, repeatedly pointing to Trump taking offense at questions from a TV interviewer. “When ’60 Minutes’ and Lesley Stahl are too tough for you, you ain’t all that tough,” he said. “If you have to walk out of a ’60 Minutes’ interview, then you’re never going to stand up to a dictator.”
Trump’s behavior is so bizarre that it wouldn’t be tolerated in any workplace or in any family, Obama said. “Florida Man wouldn’t even do this stuff. Why are we accepting it from the president of the United States? It’s not, it’s not normal behavior.” Florida Man is the mocking name applied to the person who does the crazy things the state has such a reputation for. “You shake your head and you think, ‘That’s just him,’ but there are consequences.'”
For its part, the Trump campaign said the president — who voted for himself Saturday morning in West Palm Beach — is on a roll toward re-election, and Obama’s campaigning for Biden wouldn’t do anything to stop it.
“Sending Barack Obama to the Sunshine State will do nothing to stop President Trump’s looming re-election. Floridians know Joe Biden has no answers for his 47-year failed career, which is why they will vote to re-elect President Trump and his ‘Promises Made, Promises Kept’ agenda,” Trump Victory Florida spokeswoman Emma Vaughn said in a prepared statement.
Florida, like Pennsylvania, is a large battleground state that could go either way in the presidential election. Florida awards 29 of the 270 votes needed to win the presidency, and polling shows Biden and President Donald Trump are exceedingly close.
The FiveThirtyEight average of Florida polls — all of which were conducted before Thursday night’s presidential debate — shows the two candidates are in a neck-and-neck race, with 49% for Biden and 45.7% for Trump, a difference of just 3.3 percentage points.
Like Obama, a series of warm-up speakers was unsparing on Trump. Democratic Party leaders also urged voters to cast their ballots soon, either by dropping off mail ballots at early voting sites or using in-person early voting, and not waiting until Election Day.
At least until Nov. 3, “I will be known as ‘Frederica Vote Before Election Day Wilson,'” said the congresswoman who represents Miami and part of South Broward.
“Democrats are super energized,” said Terrie Rizzo, chairwoman of the Florida Democratic Party and the Palm Beach County Democratic Party. “Democrats know it’s important to get in absolutely every vote, not just in South Florida, but everywhere in the state, even in the red areas.”
U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who represents parts of Broward and Miami-Dade counties said Democrats are so far “kicking their butts in vote-by-mail returns. We’ve got to keep that up.”
“And the long lines we see at early voting sites tells me Florida Democrats are fired up and ready to go,” Wasserman Schultz added. “We must stay strong. We can be sure of this: Like winter, Republicans are coming. There is no path for Trump winning a second term without winning Florida. Are we going to let that happen? No.”
Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried, the only statewide elected Democrat in Florida said, “we have 10 days to save our democracy.”
Obama is an extraordinary popular figure among Democrats — and someone that the party has used to buoy its recent candidates in Florida. Saturday’s socially distanced event was much more different than the closing rallies Obama held in Miami-Dade County during the final days of the 2018 and 2016 campaign, which were packed with thousands of excited attendees.
In 2018, four days before Election Day, Obama was in Miami attempting to shore up U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson and governor candidate Andrew Gillum, both of whom went on to lose. Obama delivered a take-down of Trump. Although the 44th president never mentioned the 45th president’s name during the 2018 rally, he dissected his successor’s political and policy choices, repeatedly taking him to task for what he said was a continuous stream of lies designed to inflame the American people.
In 2016, Obama appeared at Florida International University five days before the election in an attempt to rally millennial, Black and Hispanic voters for Hillary Clinton. Two weeks before that, Obama blasted Trump for advocating dangerous, un-American policies and ridiculed him as an insecure whiner.
One exception: When Obama was at the nadir of his popularity in 2014,
Charlie Crist, attempting a political comeback by running for governor as a Democrat, did not have Obama campaign for him. The decision was widely dissected at the time, with many Democrats later regarding it as a misstep by Crist’s campaign.
There was no hesitancy about Obama among Democrats on Saturday. Joshua Simmons, a Coral Springs commissioner who brought his 4-month-old daughter Caleigh to the drive-in rally, said the former president is inspiring.
“He fuels you up, gives you energy to make sure you keep talking to folks,” Simmons said.
Obama promised Simmons and the rest of the crowd that things would be different under Biden and Kamala Harris. “With Joe and Kamala at the helm, you won’t have to think about them every single day. There might be a whole day where they won’t be on TV. There might be a whole day when they don’t tweet some craziness. You won’t have to argue about it every day. It won’t be so exhausting, just having a normal president.”
“You delivered twice for me, Florida, and now I’m asking you to deliver for Joe and for Kamala,” Obama said, followed by a cacophony of honks.
Staff writer Kathy Laskowski contributed to this report.
