'They've racked up enough indictments to field a football team' - Barack Obama roasts Trump

As US midterm election day nears, president Trump is being haunted by an old adversary.

As Trump campaigns into the final stretch, his predecessor Barack Obama is doing the same for the opposite side.

In American politics, it’s very unusual for a former president to jump back in the campaigning game this quickly - but we are not living in ordinary times.

But Obama isn’t exactly mentioning Trump by name. But he doesn't have to. For instance, today he asked voters:

What kind of politics do we want? What we have not seen, at least in my memory, is where right now you’ve got politicians blatantly, repeatedly, baldly, shamelessly lying. Just making stuff up.

Obama repeatedly tore into Trump’s record on corruption in politics.

They promised to take on corruption. Instead, they have racked up enough indictments to field a football team.

I didn’t have anyone in my administration get indicted. I just thought that was how you were supposed to do things.

This was a reference to the Mueller investigation, which has seen 32 people have been indicted so far, including senior members of Trump's 2016 campaign.

Obama didn’t hold back on the “migrant caravan” either, which Trump has frequently spread false or misleading information about.

They are telling us that the single greatest threat to America is a bunch of poor, impoverished, broken, hungry refugees 1,000 miles away.

Trump has focussed on the issue of immigration during his own campaign appearances. He criticised Georgia’s democratic governor candidate recently, saying she would turn “Georgia into Venezuala” and put “Georgia families at the mercy of hardened criminals and predators”.

Obama has frequently used the word “they” to refer to the Republicans in general, but it’s clear that most of his venom is reserved for Trump.

Though this breaks with a long tradition of presidents avoiding public criticisms of each other once they leave office. Professor Brendon O’Connor, from the US Studies Centre, said:

There tends to be a bit of camaraderie. People find it interesting that there seems to be a degree of warmth between the Bush family and the Obama family, or that Bush Sr spends time with various other presidents, like Carter and Clinton.

It’s a lonely office. It’s a small club. Not a lot of people are going to understand what you’ve been through.

But although Trump is technically a part of this club, he’s still very much on the outside and, as we've seen, is used an object of ridicule.

H/T: News.com.au

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