#Obama accuses Trump of running US like ‘reality show’ in DNC speech

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Former President Barack Obama during his DNC speech tonight.
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Former President Barack Obama on Wednesday accused President Trump of being an immature narcissist who runs the US government like a “reality show,” resulting in additional coronavirus deaths.

Obama’s Trump-bashing speech on the third night of the Democratic National Convention was delivered via live feed from Philadelphia with an exhibit of the Constitution in the background.

Former Vice President Joe Biden, the Democratic presidential nominee, and his running mate Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) believe in “a fidelity to facts and science and logic, and not just making stuff up,” Obama said.

“They believe that no one, including the president, is above the law — that no public official, including the president, should use their office to enrich themselves or their supporters,” Obama said.

Obama said the Democratic ticket would not “use the men and women of our military — who are willing to risk everything to protect our nation — as political props to deploy against peaceful protesters.”

The Democrats would “will get this pandemic under control like Joe did when he helped me manage H1N1,” Obama said — using an example of a prior pandemic, which Trump often accuses Obama and Biden of mismanaging.

Obama is still seen as one of the Democrats’ best hopes at resurrecting the winning 2008 and 2012 coalition of diverse and young voters.

Obama rarely attacks Trump directly, but the president routinely slams him and Biden for “spying” on his 2016 campaign.

“I have sat in the Oval Office with both of the men who are running for president,” Obama said. “I did hope, for the sake of our country, that Donald Trump might show some interest in taking the job seriously — that he might come to feel the weight of the office and discover some reverence for the democracy that had been placed in his care. But he never did.”

Obama said that “for close to four years now, [Trump] has shown no interest in putting in the work, no interest in finding common ground, no interest in using the awesome power of his office to help anyone but himself and his friends — no interest in treating the presidency as anything but one more reality show that he can use to get the attention he craves.”

“Donald Trump hasn’t grown into the job because he can’t,” Obama said. “And the consequences of that failure are severe. 170,000 Americans dead. Millions of jobs gone … Our worst impulses unleashed, our proud reputation around the world badly diminished, and our democratic institutions threatened like never before.”

“This administration has shown that it will tear our democracy down if that’s what it takes to win,” Obama said, urging voters to “leave no doubt about what this country that we love stands for.”

Even before Obama took the stage, Trump came out swinging against Obama and Biden at a White House briefing. “President Obama did not do a good job … They did such a bad job that I stand before you as president,” Trump said.