Obama admonishes Black men for hesitancy in supporting Harris

Obama’s impassioned appeal for Harris in a state that could doom her presidential hopes comes at a moment when Democrats are fretting that her early momentum after taking over the campaign from President Joe Biden has ebbed, leaving potentially the most critical general election in decades at best a toss-up with less than a month to go.

“He’s clear-eyed about how close this race is,” a source familiar with Obama’s remarks told CNN’s Kayla Tausche. The ex-president savagely mocked Trump, asking whether his successor had ever changed a tire or a diaper and condemning his single term and “mean and ugly” border policies.
Obama’s appearance, a full-circle moment since Harris knocked on doors for him in frigid Iowa before the 2008 caucuses, also had a far deeper, personal significance. The 44th and 45th presidents have waged a political feud for more than a decade, since Trump built the foundation of his populist movement on false claims that Obama was not US-born. Birtherism was the earliest indication of the potency of Trump’s political cocktail of racial aspersions and untruths, which has reached new heights in the 2024 election.