Former US President Barack Obama on Friday launched a blistering critique of President Donald Trump and Republicans and urged Democrats to vote in November’s elections to restore “honesty and decency and lawfulness” to government.
Speaking at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and quoted by Reuters, Obama said Americans were living in “dangerous times” and accused Republicans of undermining global alliances, cozying up to Russia and exploding the federal deficit.
“In two months we have the chance to restore some semblance of sanity to our politics,” Obama said. “There is only one check on abuses of power, and that’s you and your vote.”
The midterm elections are scheduled for November 6. Both parties have encouraged their core supporters to get to the polls on that day.
Obama, who has frustrated some Democrats by keeping a relatively low profile since leaving office in January 2017, said Republicans seemed unwilling to safeguard democracy or offer a check on Trump’s policies or worst instincts.
“It’s not conservative, it sure isn’t normal. It’s radical. It’s a vision that says the protection of our power and those who back us is all that matters even if it hurts the country,” he said, according to Reuters.
Obama had so far been reluctant to publicly criticize his successor, though in May he decried Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Iran nuclear agreement, claiming the decision was "misguided" and that the deal was working.
Last week Obama appeared to chide Trump, without naming him, in a eulogy for the late Republican Senator John McCain.
(Arutz Sheva’s North American desk is keeping you updated until the start of Shabbat in New York. The time posted automatically on all Arutz Sheva articles, however, is Israeli time.)