Obama jabs Trump over White House ‘arts and crafts’ at campaign rally in Georgia

Former President Barack Obama launched a searing string of attacks on President Donald Trump during a rally alongside Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA) and Democratic gubernatorial candidate Keisha Lance Bottoms while on the campaign trail outside Atlanta on Wednesday evening.After making waves last week over comments that Trump’s ballroom and additions to the White House looked as if Saddam Hussein had designed a Cheesecake Factory, Obama doubled down and took the insults further, aided by the two Democratic candidates at a United for Georgia rally inside the Arena at Southlake in southeast Atlanta.“He’s very focused on home renovations. Should have a show on HGTV. The guy is building a ballroom that is bigger than the White House,” Obama said. “There is gold everywhere. So much gold. … The president of the United States is spending time supergluing gold medallions to the mantle in the Oval Office. I am not making this up. He is literally doing arts and crafts while we are fighting a war.” Obama pummeled Trump on several issues but said he was particularly taken aback by how the White House and entire federal government responded to a comment he made at a Michigan campaign rally. Rather than defend its policy choices and record, the White House chose to take issue with a meaningless part of Obama’s comments, he said.“That was the interesting thing about how the administration responded to the speech I gave the other day. They did not dispute what I said about them being directly responsible for rising prices. They did not argue with that. They did not deny tariffs were contributing to higher costs for families. They didn’t say anything about that,” Obama told the 8,000 attendees in the arena.“I accused this administration based on the facts that they were engaging in unprecedented levels of corruption. They didn’t say anything about that. The president wasn’t even mad about the Saddam Hussein comparison. That part didn’t bother him,” Obama said. “But he was very upset about the Cheesecake Factory.”Obama’s message focused on how Trump’s priorities were mismatched and the outcome was negatively affecting ordinary people, whom he implored to shift away from Republican politicians in next week’s election.“After two years of chaos and cruelty and corruption and incompetence, the likes of which this country has not seen in modern times, you get to say enough is enough,” Obama said. “We’re voting for change here in Georgia.”Ossoff took the state to a boisterous cheer from the crowd and vowed to spend his second term focused on bringing Trump and his associates in and out of government to justice for alleged corruption during his second term if Democrats are able to achieve a majority in the House or Senate.“Never before has so little effort been made to cover up so much corruption. And here’s the bottom line: If you’re involved in any of this, next year you’ll be raising your right hand and swearing to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth shall help you now in front of the United States Congress,” Ossoff said. “The Mar-a-Lago mafia has taken American corruption to spectacular new heights. But corruption in American politics runs a lot deeper than Donald Trump. It’s been running on corporate money, secret money, billionaire money, both sides.”Bottoms chided her competitor, Republican billionaire Rick Jackson, as a mini version of Trump who overwhelmingly favors banning abortion, allowing for the expansion of data centers, and healthcare reforms that she said would hurt the poor.“Slick Rick has made it clear that his number one priority will be to do whatever his big daddy Donald Trump tells him to do,” Bottoms said in her remarks. “Trump and Slick Rick are more interested in serving themselves than serving the people, but on Tuesday, we get to decide what we’re going to do about it. … President Obama has reminded us that government can be a force for good, and that progress happens when we have the courage to stand in the gap for people who need it.”Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA) spoke at the beginning of the rally and noted that Jackson had spent nearly $200 million of his own fortune on his campaign for governor, prompting the crowd to erupt in a “Not for Sale!” chant.Attendees who spoke with the Washington Examiner said Obama, Ossoff, and Bottoms hit the nail on the head by linking Trump’s misdirected priorities to issues affecting voters.Amy Smith, a 52-year-old woman from Newnan, Georgia, said the messages from all three main speakers focused on how the White House’s priorities were not in line with the public’s greatest concerns, most notably affordability.“Trump is focusing on things that are just like decorating the ballroom and like things that are just not important to real, everyday people,” Smith told the Washington Examiner outside the arena.Kamel Riggins, a 23-year-old therapist who attended the rally, said Obama made his point in a “humane” way that “resonated” with those in the room.“The current administration, they have done things that have kind of affected lots of different communities,” Riggins said. “I like the aspect of how raw but also how focused they are in trying to combat and reform all of the policies that have been enacted currently.”Jimmy Bozeman of Atlanta cited a portion of the Bible in Romans 12 that states people should live as a sacrifice for others, and said the approach Democrats laid out during their remarks was more in line with that as opposed to how the Trump administration was “taking away” low prices for gasoline “from humanity.”TRUMP BORDER CHIEF DEFENDS BIG BEND WALL PLANS AS COURT BATTLE DELAYS CONSTRUCTIONThe gubernatorial race is the tighter of the two races. Jackson led Bottoms by barely 1 percentage point, 47.8% to 46.6%, according to the average of five surveys of Georgia voters taken last month and this month.A RealClearPolitics average of recent polls conducted in September and October revealed Ossoff had an 8.2-percentage-point advantage over Rep. Mike Collins (R-GA), 51.2% to 43%.