Former President Barack Obama resurrected his 2008 message of “hope” and “change” to revive the Democratic National Convention and mocked his successor Donald Trump.
The first black president threw his support behind another candidate with a “funny name”: Kamala Harris, before comparing Trump to an annoying neighbor.
He told his Democratic colleagues in Chicago that “the torch has been passed” to Harris and that the United States is ready for her to become president.
“Yes she can,” Obama said of Harris, prompting the raucous crowd to chant the phrase repeatedly, recalling Obama’s own campaign slogan, “Yes we can.”
Obama then lashed out at Trump for “the childish nicknames and crazy conspiracy theories, this weird obsession with crowd size,” earning loud cheers from the crowd at the United Center.
It was a statement reminiscent of Trump’s recent bizarre claim that the large crowd at Harris was fake, and Trump’s dubious claim that he had a larger audience at his inauguration than Obama.
The attack, which involved a hand gesture, also appeared to reference jokes about the size of Trump’s hands that Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) used briefly during the 2016 campaign.
“We all knew what that hand gesture meant, Barack Obama,” former CNN host Don Lemon posted on X, taking a more suggestive view of the comment.
At a convention where a series of speakers attacked Trump for his policies and videos alternately ridiculed him and called him a grave threat, Obama spoke out.
“We don’t need four more years of bluster and chaos. We’ve seen that movie — and we all know the sequel is usually worse,” Obama said to applause.
Former President Barack Obama ridiculed Donald Trump’s “weird obsession” with crowd size in a speech to Congress, calling for a “passing of the torch” to Kamala Harris
The former president electrified the convention crowd when he repeated some of his favorite sayings, including the phrase, “Don’t boo, vote.”
“I don’t know about you, but I’m feeling energized,” he said early, reminding Democrats of the joy that was part of his historic race for the White House. “I feel ready to go,” he added.
Obama, after her opening remarks, joked about the dangers of following his wife, Michelle Obama. His speech nearly topped his own with a sharp remark about Trump.
“Who’s going to tell him that the job he’s applying for now might be a black job?” she asked.
The former president then tried his own brand of sharp humor, one that has irked Trump in the past.
“Here’s a 78-year-old billionaire who hasn’t stopped whining about his problems since he went off his golden escalator nine years ago. It’s a constant stream of complaining and grievances that have actually gotten worse now that he’s afraid of losing to Kamala.”
“I heard someone compare Trump the other day to that neighbor who runs his leaf blower outside your window every minute of the day,” he joked. “Coming from a neighbor, that’s exhausting. Coming from a president, it’s just plain dangerous,” said Obama, who owns mansions in Washington, Chicago and Hawaii.
Obama may have been overshadowed by his wife Michelle Obama, and joked about the challenge of continuing after her
Obama’s attacks on Trump and praise for Harris brought the crowd to its feet
He said Trump sees the president as merely “a means to an end.”
“He wants the middle class to pay the price for another huge tax cut that would primarily benefit him and his rich friends,” Obama said.
The criticism came after Trump offered some unusually kind words to Obama and Michelle Obama, preempting the attack.
Obama’s other mission was to “pass the torch” and he spent much of his speech building up Kamala Harris.
Obama, who rose to fame in part thanks to his 2004 convention speech, initially did so by pairing Harris with another unlikely politician: himself.
“I am hopeful because this Congress has always been very good for children with funny names who believe in a country where everything is possible,” he said near the beginning of his speech.
“We are ready for a President Kamala Harris,” he said.
It was another seal of approval after his former advisers helped engineer the extraordinary shake-up at the top of the standings.
Obama raved about his former buddy President Joe Biden, who was vacationing in California 24 hours after his own speech at the party convention, which lasted past midnight.
Obama’s aides were among the key figures who urged Biden to leave after his disastrous debate. The episode reignited old tensions after Obama encouraged Biden not to run in 2016, while Hillary Clinton prepared for her own ultimately failed campaign.
Obama called his own decision to choose Biden as his running mate “one of my best,” praising his “empathy and decency” as well as his “hard-won resilience.” But it wasn’t enough to carry him from the primaries to the party convention.
“History will remember Joe Biden as a president who defended democracy in a moment of great danger. I am proud to call him my president, but even prouder to call him my friend,” he said.
He praised Biden for “putting aside his own ambitions for the good of the country” and said he was a “steady” leader “at a time when the other party had turned into a cult of personality.”
“The torch has been passed. Now it’s up to all of us to fight for the America we believe in,” Obama said.
Obama, a former organizer, also tried to warn the crowd, saying that “despite all the demonstrations and memes, this is still going to be a close race in a country that is deeply divided.” He warned that there would be low points.
And the famous speaker who is sometimes accused of being a professor also weighed in on some social commentary. “We go on our phones looking for approval from strangers … and then we wonder why we feel so alone,” Obama said.
