CLEVELAND — Former President Barack Obama, appearing here Saturday at his first campaign rally for this fall’s midterm elections, called President Donald Trump an agent of “chaos and cruelty” and a man of broken promises.
And in a particularly pointed critique of his Republican successor, Obama mocked Trump’s ballroom construction and the gold accents he added to the White House.
“Does anyone really think this guy in the White House is spending all his time thinking about these issues right now?” Obama asked. “I mean, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but he seems very focused on home renovations. He should be on HGTV.”
Obama added moments later: “He makes the White House look like Saddam Hussein opened a cheesecake factory.” »
The crowd inside a nearly full public auditorium, which seats more than 10,000 people, erupted in laughter at that and other jokes Obama offered throughout his afternoon speech. The former president’s visit was aimed at bolstering two Democrats: Amy Acton, the party’s nominee for governor, and former Sen. Sherrod Brown, who staged a comeback for his old office.
Ohio, which has become more reliably Republican since Trump entered politics, has become an intense battleground this year. Polls show both races are toss-up, with Democrats particularly hoping to win the governorship for the first time in 20 years.
“This midterm election victory cuts across Ohio,” Rep. Shontel Brown, a Democrat whose district includes much of Cleveland, said as she warmed up the crowd.
Trump has rallied in the state twice in recent weeks, with the pitch primarily focused on Brown’s Republican rival, Sen. Jon Husted. Trump will return next week for an event in Chillicothe, a small working-class town that served as Ohio’s first state capital.
Meanwhile, the gubernatorial race was rocked this week by the decision of Vivek Ramaswamy, the Republican gubernatorial candidate, to air an explosive attack ad featuring Acton’s ex-mother calling her a “liar.”
The ad was quickly condemned by both parties because it drew on one family’s painful history of alleged sexual abuse. Obama particularly scorned the attack in his speech on Saturday.
“We all know that guy, who’s thirsty,” Obama said of Ramaswamy. “He just wants attention no matter what, he’s ready for anything. And in the last few days we’ve seen that there’s no line he won’t cross.”
He added: “I don’t know what happened where the standards of behavior have become so low that someone would run an advert like that. »
Acton also briefly addressed the controversy in his remarks at the rally, thanking his supporters for “the love you have shown” in recent days.
“My opponent,” she said, referring to Ramaswamy, “chose to intentionally exploit my childhood to save his ailing campaign, but it won’t work.”
In the Ramaswamy campaign ad, Donna Arthur calls her daughter a liar and urges Ohioans not to vote for her. Acton said she hadn’t seen or spoken to Arthur in almost 50 years. Over the years and throughout her campaign, Acton also spoke about being sexually assaulted by Arthur’s husband when she was a child. She said she was removed from Arthur’s custody in 1978, after her then-stepfather was accused of rape.
Ramaswamy defended the ad, and his campaign told NBC News on Thursday that it planned to spend $4 million to air it. Trump also expressed his approval.
Obama also had kind words for Brown, whom he playfully described as frugal.
“He still wears the same suit he wore when I met him 20 years ago,” Obama said of Brown, who has a reputation for maintaining a rumpled appearance. “You know he got his hair cut for this rally, but you all know he’s too cheap to get his hair cut more than once every two months.”
Brown, Obama added, “is not someone who claims to care about working people. He’s always been there for you, even when it’s tough, even when he might lose an election.”
Brown, who spent nearly 50 years in public service before losing his Senate seat in 2024, argued in his speech that “corruption is inherent in everything” in Washington.
“The politicians who are supposed to work for you are taking advantage of this,” Brown said. “When they are in power, they play on the stock market, and when they leave power, they become lobbyists.”
When Brown associated Husted with billionaires like Elon Musk and Trump, the crowd erupted in chants of “Lock him up!” » The moment brought to mind the “Lock her up!” » » chants that rang out at Trump rallies during his campaign against Hillary Clinton in 2016.
Meanwhile, Obama’s appearance alongside Democrats drew retorts from their Republican opponents.
“Ohioans cannot afford a liberal governor who shows up for Obama but never shows up for them,” said Ramaswamy spokeswoman Connie Luck.
“The sight of Sherrod Brown and Barack Obama together again should send shivers down the spines of Ohioans,” said Amy Natoce, a spokeswoman for Husted. “The Brown-Obama duo gave us higher taxes, fewer jobs and wide open borders. »
Obama focused much of his 35-minute speech on Trump.
“Two years ago, a lot of people weren’t crazy about this guy’s character, but they were frustrated with post-Covid inflation,” Obama said. “They saw prices going up and they heard him make a lot of promises to control costs.”
While Trump urged voters in this year’s midterm elections to act as if he were on the ballot, Obama suggested they should evaluate Republican candidates by examining whether Trump has kept his 2024 promises. He specifically criticized Trump’s tariffs and the war with Iran, both of which have driven up prices.
“In this case, the actions of this administration are directly responsible for the rising costs,” Obama said. “The current president chose to make a series of bad decisions. Most importantly, he decided to start an unnecessary war that no one asked for, that no one voted for.”
Obama is expected to campaign in Michigan on Saturday with Jocelyn Benson and Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic candidates for governor and senator. He is focusing this fall on races where he believes he can motivate Democrats and swing voters, with an emphasis on closely watched elections like those in Ohio and Michigan, according to his office.
Next week, Obama is scheduled to travel to Atlanta, where he will campaign alongside Sen. Jon Ossoff and Keisha Lance Bottoms, the Democratic nominee for Georgia governor.
The former president — through events, emails and mailings coordinated by Democratic committees — also helped raise more than $15 million for the midterm elections, his office said. He has recorded more than two dozen television and radio spots, with more expected before Election Day.
In his speech here, Obama described the election as a potential “inflection point” and a “course correction.”
“After two years of chaos, cruelty, corruption and incompetence, the likes of which we have not seen in modern times,” Obama said, “you have the opportunity to say, ‘Enough is enough. We are going to change right here in Ohio.'”
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