Former US President Barack Obama on Saturday accused President Donald Trump and his Republican allies of promoting cruelty and indecency as he campaigned for Democratic candidates in two key Midwestern battleground states ahead of the November 3 midterm elections.
Speaking first in Ohio, Obama criticised Republican gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy over an advertisement featuring the estranged mother of his Democratic rival, Dr Amy Acton. Trump and Vice President JD Vance have defended the advertisement, although several Ohio Republican leaders, including Governor Mike DeWine, have called for it to be withdrawn.
“There is no line he will not cross, no low he will not sink to,” Obama said, referring to Ramaswamy and pointing to Acton’s accounts of childhood abuse, neglect and homelessness.
Acton, a former state health director during the COVID-19 pandemic, accused Ramaswamy of exploiting her childhood to rescue his struggling campaign, saying that decency still mattered.
The campaign video features Acton’s birth mother, Donna Arthur, calling her a liar and suggesting she has mental health issues. Arthur lost custody of her children after her husband, Cledith Arthur, was indicted on a rape charge involving Acton. The alleged abuse occurred between December 1976 and April 1978. Cledith Arthur later failed to appear in court and became a fugitive. Donna Arthur remained married to him until his death in 2004.
Trump, who cast his ballot in Florida on Saturday, defended the advertisement, saying Acton’s mother had criticised her.
Later in Detroit, Michigan, Obama rallied behind Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, accusing critics of using his name and Muslim faith against him.
“We have seen this movie before. I starred in it,” Obama told a packed high school gym, referring to the false claims about his birthplace that he faced during his political career. “I’ve got a long-form birth certificate to prove it.”
“Abdul is as Michigan as it gets,” he added.
Obama, 65, remains a prominent Democratic campaigner nearly a decade after leaving the White House. His appearances come as Democrats seek to strengthen their position in elections that will determine the balance of power in Washington.
In Michigan, Obama rejected descriptions of El-Sayed as a radical, saying the candidate shared his values. He also acknowledged that El-Sayed had criticised him after his 2012 reelection for failing to fulfil all his progressive campaign promises.
El-Sayed once wrote that Obama “was not the right choice — he just wasn’t the wrong one.”
Responding to the criticism, Obama joked that even his wife, Michelle Obama, disagreed with him several times a day.
Democrats hope Obama's appearance in Detroit, a city that is about three-quarters Black, will help El-Sayed attract more Black voters. In the primary, his rival Haley Stevens won Wayne County, which includes Detroit, by around six percentage points. Former Vice President Kamala Harris, the first Black and South Asian person to serve as vice president, campaigned for El-Sayed in September.
Cheryl McWilliams, 67, said Obama's speech encouraged people to vote and expressed hope for strong turnout.
“If Detroit doesn’t vote, whoever’s running is going to lose, period,” she said, urging efforts to reach people who believe their votes do not matter.
Chunnika Hodges, a Detroit resident who canvassed for El-Sayed on Saturday, said some Black voters were backing Republican Mike Rogers because they felt little had changed after years of voting for Democrats. Others were concerned about El-Sayed’s progressive policies, she said, noting that conservative views also existed within the Black community.
Obama also devoted much of his speech to criticising Trump, accusing the president and his family of widespread corruption and faulting him for failing to reduce living costs.
He mocked Trump's focus on constructing a new White House ballroom and a helipad on the South Lawn while Americans faced economic pressures.
“He should be on HGTV,” Obama quipped, adding that the White House looked as though “Saddam Hussein opened a Cheesecake Factory,” in a reference to Trump's extensive use of gold decorations.
Acknowledging that Trump would remain president for another two years, Obama urged voters to hold Republicans accountable in the midterms.
He criticised what he described as a spineless Congress and Republican governors who tolerated lawlessness, carelessness and indifference towards working people.
“After two years of chaos and cruelty and corruption and incompetence … you get a chance to say enough is enough,” he said.
Obama is scheduled to headline a rally in Georgia next week with Democratic Senator Jon Ossoff and gubernatorial candidate Keisha Lance Bottoms.
Trump, who campaigned in Perry, Georgia, on Saturday evening alongside Republican candidates, referred several times to Obama's Detroit appearance and claimed that the venue had been empty.