Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Obama goes after Trump and Rubio at South Florida event
Seeking to energize Democratic voters in Florida, President Barack Obama on Thursday accused Donald Trump of advocating dangerous, un-American policies and ridiculed him as an insecure whiner.
The president labeled as dangerous Trump’s repeated assertions that the election may be rigged, calling the notion “more than just the usual, standard lie.” And Obama mocked Trump for suggesting Thursday that he might accept the outcome if he is the winner.
Obama repeatedly sought to lash together Trump and U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., who is facing a re-election challenge from U.S. Rep. Patrick Murphy of Jupiter.
And, during his 40-minute speech to a mostly AfricanAmerican crowd at Florida Memorial University in Miami Gardens, Obama repeatedly praised Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and Murphy.
“Donald Trump has nothing to offer but anger and grievance and blame. And so his closing argument asks what do you have to lose? Well, I’m here to tell you: everything,” Obama said. “Donald Trump wants to reverse progress. Marco Rubio wants to help him. You want to give me a good sendoff? You
want to give Michelle a good sendoff? Work as hard for Hillary and Patrick as you did for us.”
About 2,800 people saw Obama speak at Florida Memorial, the only historically black college or university in South Florida. He urged those in the crowd to get all their friends and family to vote and to “get Pookie to vote and get Javier to vote.”
Obama repeatedly urged the crowd not to wait. He pushed in-person early voting, which begins Monday in Broward, Palm Beach and Miami-Dade counties.
“Here’s the good news. You don’t have to wait until Nov. 8 to send Hillary to the White House. You don’t have to wait until Nov. 8 to send Patrick Murphy to the United States Senate. You can vote early starting this Monday,” he said.
“When you vote early, you can kind of do it on your lunch break. You can do it at your leisure. You can take your time,” Obama said. “Starting Monday, you can reject someone who proves himself unfit to be president every single day. You can reject his dark, pessimistic fear-mongering vision.”
Obama didn’t start on Trump right away. But when he did, the crowd responded with boos. “Don’t boo, vote. Booing doesn’t do any good. Vote,” Obama said. “Trump can’t hear you from here. But he can hear you when you go to the ballot box and vote.”
Dismissing Trump’s assertion that the election could be rigged, Obama said stealing something as decentralized as a presidential election is impossible. He said more people are hit by lightning or win the Powerball than there are cases of voter fraud. And he suggested Trump may never even have been in a polling place and seen how it operates.
Pointing to Trump’s refusal to release his tax returns, as every presidential nominee has done for four decades, Obama suggested Trump isn’t as rich as he claims or doesn’t pay federal income taxes. He mocked the idea that “a guy who’s spent 70 years on earth showing no regard for working people suddenly is going to be the champion of working people.” He poked fun at Trump’s “bromance” with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Returning to Rubio, he referred to the senator’s comments that he didn’t trust Trump with the nuclear codes and that Trump is a “con man.”
“Now that begs the question, since we’re in Florida, why does Marco Rubio still plan to vote for Donald Trump? Why is he still supporting Donald Trump?” Obama asked. “How can you call him a con artist and dangerous and object to all the controversial things he says and then say, ‘but I’m still going to vote for him?’ Come on, man. Come on,” Obama said. “You know what that is, though? It is the height of cynicism.”
He questioned Rubio’s skepticism about the effect human activity has on climate change and rising sea levels. “Unlike his opponent, Patrick actually believes in science and believes in the effects of climate change,” something Obama said is obvious. “You see the ocean coming up through the streets, how can you deny what is right in front of you.”
Obama said Trump emanated from an environment years in the making by “Republican politicians and far-right media outlets just pumping out all kinds of toxic, crazy stuff.” He said it didn’t originate with Trump. “Like he usually does, he just slaps his name on it, took credit and promoted the hell out of it.”
Clinton, by contrast, has the background and temperament to tackle national and international challenges, Obama argued. “Even in the middle of a crisis, she is calm and cool and collected.”
He said she is immersed in policy. “She loves this stuff. She’s just reading her briefing book all the time. She’s not watching TV. She’s not watching the reality TV. She’s not participating in reality TV. She’s doing the work.”
Wearing a white shirt and purple tie — and speaking in front of a “ClintonKaine” sign, not the presidential seal — Obama started off by talking about his time as president winding down and appearing on what “will be probably one of my last visits to Miami as president. Don’t worry. I’m going to come back. But I won’t be president, so I can have more fun.”
When the crowd delivered raucous approval, Obama responded: “That’s one of the things I love about Florida. It’s always a rowdy crowd.”
Earlier, Obama touted his Affordable Care Act during a speech at MiamiDade College’s Wolfson campus in downtown Miami . Millions of Americans “now know the financial security of health insurance” because of it, he said. “It’s worked,” he said, even while allowing that the program isn’t perfect, saying no law is.
Obama chalked up Republican criticism to “nothing more than politics” and GOP envy that “a Democratic president named Barack Obama passed the law. That’s just the truth.”
Later, Obama attended a Miami Beach fundraiser for the Democratic Governors Association, the party arm that raises money for its gubernatorial candidates.
Air Force One arrived at Miami International Airport shortly after 1 p.m. Thursday. Obama descended to the tarmac with U.S. Rep Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Weston, who was his handpicked chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee for most of his presidency. She resigned this summer after hacked emails revealed party staffers favored Clinton during the primary season; her arrival with the president is a sign of his support for her.
The Clinton campaign has deployed the president — who, polls show, is more popular today than when he was re-elected in 2012 — to key battleground states. In recent weeks he’s appeared on her behalf in Ohio and Pennsylvania.
Obama’s campaigning on Clinton’s behalf has generated complaints from Trump. At an Oct. 13 rally at the South Florida Fairgrounds west of West Palm Beach, Trump said he was running to save the nation from being “led by inept, incompetent and corrupt people like Barack Obama and like Hillary Clinton. We don’t want to be part of that history.
“And by the way, President Obama should stop campaigning and start working on creating jobs, start working on getting our GDP up, start working on strengthening our borders.”
Joe Gruters, vice chairman of the Florida Republican Party, echoed Trump’s complaints in a statement Thursday.
“America faces very serious issues at home and abroad. Instead of campaigning for Hillary Clinton, President Obama should be doing his job and helping grow the economy and get Americans back to work,” Gruters said in a written statement. “Floridians are tired of corruption and back-room deals from decades-long insiders like Hillary, and will vote for change in November.”
Obama’s visit had two objectives:
Shoring up support in Florida.
The Clinton-Trump race is closer in Florida than nationally. The latest RealClearPolitics average of national polls show Clinton leading Trump by 6 percentage points, 45.2 percent to 39.2 percent. In Florida, she has a 3.8-point lead, with 46.8 percent for Clinton and 43 percent for Trump.
With the start of early voting, the Clinton campaign is blanketing the state. Former President Bill Clinton is in the state today and Saturday. Vice presidential nominee Tim Kaine will be in the state Sunday and Monday. And Hillary Clinton will be in the state Tuesday and Wednesday.
Generating enthusiasm among black voters.
Black voters are a critical part of the Democratic coalition, and high turnout among African-American and Caribbean-American voters helped Obama win narrow Florida victories in 2008 and 2012. Clinton has strong support among black voters, but many community leaders have expressed concern about ensuring that voters are enthusiastic enough to cast ballots.
Delivering an Obama warmup speech, U.S. Rep. Frederica Wilson, a Miami Democrat whose district includes part of south Broward, suggested dire consequences for the black community if Trump were elected.
Wilson said Trump nominees to the U.S. Supreme Court could overturn longstanding policy on such issues as abortion rights, and even reverse some of the signature civil rights decisions of the 20th century.
She said that could lead to undoing the Brown v. Board of Education decision on segregated schools, meaning the nation could “go back to the days of separate but equal.”
DJ Khaled, recording artist and deejay, gave another warmup speech. “You gotta make sure that we put in power someone what’s going to represent us,” he said. “The same way we voted for our favorite president, Obama, we have to vote for Hillary.”
Tyrone Hill, 24, of North Miami, a Florida Memorial communications and public relations student, said having Obama at the Miami Gardens campus helped “fill the void” between black millennials and Clinton. He said it provided “a positive outlook on voting for the community.”
Zauria Smith, 19, a music major from Miramar, said Obama’s support would help Clinton. “Trump is not really that ideal a president. Hillary Clinton is. Like Obama said, our vote matters.”
“She’s not participating in reality TV. She’s doing the work.” President Barack Obama, speaking of Hillary Clinton