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    ‘He's jealous of Covid’s media coverage’: Obama ridicules Trump at Florida rally

    Barack Obama ridiculed Donald Trump at a Florida rally on Tuesday for the president’s complaints about the media closely covering the national coronavirus crisis.
    The 44th president has recently abandoned traditional decorum where a former president refrains from publicly criticizing his successor, lambasting the 45th president in recent speeches for his response to the coronavirus pandemic, in particular.
    At a drive-in rally in Orlando to boost support for his former Vice President and now Democratic nominee for the White House, Joe Biden, Obama took a tone combining mockery of Trump with indignation.
    He spoke of record numbers dying of coronavirus in the US and asked rhetorically of the president: “What is his closing argument?” with the election just a week away.
    “That people are too focused on Covid. He said this at one of his rallies ‘Covid, Covid, Covid’, he is complaining. He is jealous of Covid’s media coverage,” Obama said with mock incredulity as the crowd laughed.

    At a rally on Saturday in North Carolina, Trump did say those words and complained that the media was paying too much attention to coronavirus, even as he claimed record case numbers are exaggerated and downplayed the death rates.
    Obama said: “If he had been focused on Covid from the beginning, cases would not be reaching record highs across the country this week, the White House would not be having its second outbreak in a month.
    Staff working for Mike Pence, the vice-president, have come down with Covid, it was revealed at the weekend, just a few weeks after Trump, his wife and youngest son all had coronavirus and multiple prominent people tested positive after the event at the White House to nominate Amy Coney Barrett to the supreme court.
    Obama also roasted the White House for chief of staff Mark Meadows’s remark on television at the weekend that the administration was not going to control the pandemic.
    Obama said: “Winter is coming. They are waving the white flag of surrender. Florida, we can’t afford four more years of this, that’s why we’ve got to send Joe Biden to the White House.”
    Trump tweeted that it was a “no crowd, fake speech” and slammed conservative Fox News for airing it.
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    Obama mocks Trump: 'He’s jealous of Covid’s media coverage' – video

    Former US president Barack Obama mocked Donald Trump at an election rally for Joe Biden in Florida. Obama criticised his successor’s response to the coronavirus pandemic, noting that Trump had complained about the amount of news coverage it had received even as the US death toll continues to climb. ‘He’s jealous of Covid’s media coverage,’ Obama said.
    The former president also criticised Trump for his personal lack of coronavirus safety, saying that he had turned the White House into a ‘hot zone’ in the wake of two coronavirus outbreaks among the president and his senior staff. ‘Florida, we can’t afford four more years of this,’ Obama added. ‘We cannot afford this kind of incompetence and disinterest.’ More

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    Trump responds to Barack Obama's speech at Biden-Harris rally – video

    Donald Trump has responded to Barack Obama’s speech at a campaign rally for Joe Biden, saying the former president underestimated him in 2016. “I think the only one, the only one more unhappy than crooked Hillary that night was Barack Hussein Obama,” Trump said. Less than two weeks from the election, Trump’s campaign took him to North Carolina, where he told supporters “I love this particular state, but I might not have come here so often. I’ve been all over your state, you better let me win” More

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    Barack Obama likens Donald Trump to 'crazy uncle' in Joe Biden rally speech – video

    Barack Obama has delivered a stinging rebuke of president Donald Trump in a speech delivered in Philadelphia while campaigning for Joe Biden. Obama criticised Trump’s handling of the coronavirus crisis as well as divisive behaviour including retweeting conspiracy theories that you wouldn’t tolerate from  anyone “except from a crazy uncle”. The former president also praised the positivity shown during the pandemic and recent Black Lives Matter movement . “We see that what is best is us is still there, but we’ve got to give it voice.” More

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    'Trump isn't going to protect us': Obama returns to campaign trail for Biden

    US elections 2020

    Former president told voters in swing state Pennsylvania: ‘What we do now these next 13 days will matter for decades to come’

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    Barack Obama likens Donald Trump to ‘crazy uncle’ in Joe Biden rally speech – video

    Barack Obama returned to the campaign trail on Wednesday to deliver a scathing – and occasionally humorous – condemnation of his successor while envisioning an America led by his former vice-president, Joe Biden.
    Sleeves rolled and wearing a black mask that read VOTE, Obama assailed Donald Trump over his response to the coronavirus pandemic, which has killed more than 220,000 Americans and infected millions more, including the president.
    “Eight months into this pandemic, cases are rising again across this country” Obama said at a drive-in rally in Philadelphia less than two weeks before election day. “Donald Trump isn’t suddenly going to protect all of us. He can’t even take the basic steps to protect himself.”
    Declaring this “the most important election of our lifetime”, Obama pleaded with Americans to deliver Biden a victory so overwhelming that Trump cannot seriously dispute the result. “What we do now these next 13 days will matter for decades to come,” he said.
    Obama, who swept to the White House on an optimistic message of “hope and change,” acknowledged that progress was not always a straight line. “The fact that we don’t get 100% of what we want right away is not a good reason not to vote,” he implored.
    His visit to Pennsylvania, one of three traditionally Democratic Rust Belt states that he won twice and Trump won in 2016, underscored its significance this cycle. Both candidates have lavished the state with frequent visits and a blitz of advertising. Biden holds a narrow lead in Pennsylvania, according to a RealClearPolitics average of state polls.
    Seizing on a comment Trump made during a rally in western Pennsylvania on Tuesday, when he told supporters that he would not have been there if his campaign wasn’t trailing, Obama smiled mischievously: “Poor guy. I don’t feel that way. I love coming to Pennsylvania.”
    Waving away the polls and punditry that have shown Biden widening his lead in recent weeks, Obama urged Black men and young progressives not to sit out this cycle.
    “I don’t care about the polls. There were a whole bunch of polls last time,” he said. “Didn’t work out because a whole bunch of folks stayed at home.” More

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    Voting 'makes things better': Barack Obama praises youth – video

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    Barack Obama has praised young Black Lives Matter demonstrators saying they gave him ‘optimism’, during a discussion with black male community leaders ahead of a drive-in rally for Joe Biden on Wednesday night.
    At his Philadelphia campaign event, Obama emphasized the need for young voters to make it to the polls to ensure a better future for the country
    Trump cuts short pre-election interview as Covid stimulus bill moves closer – live

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    Cornel West: 'George Floyd's public lynching pulled the cover off who we really are'

    Cornel West is a thinker. Readers of Prospect magazine recently voted him the world’s fourth-best thinker. And right now he is thinking about 3 November, and whether the United States will reject or endorse Donald Trump. No one knows what will happen; not even West, not least because in the US he sees contradictions that even he can’t fully explain.One such contradiction was Charlottesville, Virginia on the day in August 2017 when far-right activists menaced a community, killed a woman protesting against racism and then basked in the affirmation of Trump calling them “some very fine people”. West – always dapper in black suit, black scarf, white shirt, gleaming cufflinks and with his grey-flecked afro standing proud – was there.“I remember seeing those folk looking at us and cussing at us and spitting at us and carrying on. And then the charge, and the anti-fascists coming in to save our lives. But what I also remember is walking by the park and seeing these neo-fascist brothers listening to some black music. I said: ‘Wow, this is America, isn’t it? These neo-fascist brothers listening to some Motown just before they going to mow us down.’ Ain’t that something?”What West says matters because of his CV and because he straddles so many platforms: in academia, in the media, in popular culture. He seems too learned to be embraced by popular culture and too popular to have sway in academia, and yet he manages both. It’s capital he intends to expend between now and November.“I am not crazy about Biden,” he says. “I don’t endorse him. But I believe we gotta vote for him. I am not in love with neoliberal elites either. I think they have to take some responsibility for this neo-fascist moment. But in the end, this white supremacy is soooo lethal … and it cuts so deep.” More

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    Obama to hit campaign trail in final sprint of election, Biden says

    Democratic challenger Joe Biden indicated that his Barack Obama would soon be hitting the campaign trail in person to stump for his former running mate, with three weeks to go until the presidential election.“He’s doing enough for our campaign. He’ll be out on the trail,” Biden said on Tuesday before leaving for a campaign stop in Florida.Obama has participated in virtual fundraisers for Biden, his former vice-president, and the two filmed a “socially distanced conversation” in July, which focused on criticizing Donald Trump’s response to the coronavirus pandemic.Obama is seen by many as a brilliant campaigner, able to stir Democratic enthusiasm and get voters to the polls. He’s also appeared in online fundraising with vice-presidential candidate Kamala Harris.Reports appeared to confirm the move that Obama would soon be stepping out. “President Obama plans to hit the trail soon, in addition to all the other activities he’s undertaken all year in support of electing VP Biden – as he’s said, we all have to do everything we can to win on November 3,” an aide to the former president told ABC News.Any appearance by Obama on the stump in the final sprint of the election would also be in marked contrast to the attitude of the most recent former Republican president – George W Bush – who has not even expressed support for Trump, let alone joined him on his re-election bid.Meanwhile, Biden kept up his withering assault on Trump’s record in office by hitting yet another key swing state. In Pembroke Pines, Florida, Biden focused a speech on criticizing the president’s response to Covid-19, which is still out of control in the US, with cases rising in many states.The Democratic nominee told senior voters that Trump had treated America’s older citizens like they were expendable, for his own ends. To Trump, “you’re expendable, you’re forgettable, you’re virtually nobody,” Biden said at a senior center in Pembroke Pines, about 20 miles from Fort Lauderdale.The “only senior Donald Trump seems to care about” is himself, Biden added.“I prayed for his recovery when he got Covid. And I hoped he’d at least come out of it somewhat chastened,” Biden said of the president. “But what has he done? He’s just doubled down on the misinformation he did before and [is] making it worse.”Biden’s courting of seniors was a sign of his bet that a voting bloc that buoyed Trump four years ago has become disenchanted with the White House’s handling of the pandemic, in particular. It was Biden’s third visit to the state in a month, after making targeted appeals to other voting communities, including military veterans and Latinos.Florida is an essential state for both candidates to win, but especially Trump, whose narrow triumph there in 2016 fueled his shock victory over Hillary Clinton.Later, Biden was speaking at a voter mobilization rally in the heavily African American Florida community of Miramar. His swing through the state coincided with a $500,000 donation from billionaire former New York mayor Mike Bloomberg to increase Democratic turnout in Miami-Dade county.It also corresponded with more encouraging polling for the Democrat who seems to have surged in recent weeks. In most national polls he has a double digit lead over Trump and is also comfortably ahead in most swing state polls. But a new poll on Tuesday evening showed Biden’s lead surging to 17 points, according to an Opinium Research and Guardian opinion poll.About 57% of likely voters surveyed said they intended to vote for Biden, while just 40% said they favor Trump. More