Barack Obama launched his midterm voting push with a speech addressing the “state of our democracy” at the University Of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign on Friday. Obama went in with a lot to say about Trump, delivering some of the strongest clapbacks to date.
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For those who believe Obama has been too lax and hasn’t spoken up enough, the former president finally pulled no punches. Trump has been a product of a culture of people who are fearful of change, the ex-president said.
“It did not start with Donald Trump. He is a symptom, not the cause,” the ex-president said. “He’s just capitalizing on resentments that politicians have been fanning for years.”
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But Trump wasn’t the only one that Obama checked during the speech. The president gave a rundown on his thoughts of the Republican party.
“Over the past few decades, the politics of division and resentment and paranoia has unfortunately found a home in the Republican party,” Obama said.
The speech had most of the signature and swagger that Obama has brought in his public speaking events during the more than a decade that he has been on the political landscape. He gave a lesson on U.S. history and reviewed his presidential record but his words on Trump were chosen as the speech’s most memorable moments. Here are a few of those comments.
