US President Donald Trump has been urging voters to look at the midterm congressional elections as if he were the candidate in those elections, and yesterday, Saturday, one of his predecessors from the Democratic Party did the same.
Ten days before the elections that will determine control of Congress, which is closely divided between the two parties, former President Barack Obama embarked on an election tour to accuse Trump of corruption, mock his strategy towards Iran and criticize the extravagance in the White House renovations.
Obama rallied support for Democratic candidates at campaign rallies in Cleveland and Detroit, where he mocked the Trump administration. During the election campaign in Michigan in support of US Senate candidate Abdul Rahman Al-Sayyed, Obama described the elections scheduled for November 3 as an “electric circuit breaker” that would “rein in some of the foolishness” that characterizes Trump’s presidency.
Obama said: “We have to turn on this switch and impose some accountability on this government,” according to what was reported by the Reuters news agency.
“A president who excels at fraud and deception.”
Obama, who served as president from 2009 until Trump took his first term in 2017, remains one of the most popular figures among Democrats. Democrats hope that including him in the electoral race will motivate their supporters in a tight race for the US Senate seats, where Abdul Rahman Al-Sayyid faces Republican candidate Mike Rogers, a former member of the US House of Representatives.
The former president responded to the Michigan audience by addressing the criticisms that Democrats constantly repeat against Trump and the Republicans' willingness to submit to him.
Obama said: “We have never seen a president excel at outright deception and fraud, at your expense, in this way... And now the party appears to represent a corrupt government, an incapable government, or no government at all.”
The White House has not yet responded to a request for comment.
Mocking the Minister of War
A Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted in August showed that 63 percent of Americans believe that the president and his family have inappropriately benefited from cryptocurrencies since his return to the White House, and that 69 percent believe that his political decisions are influenced by his private business dealings.
Obama also mocked the current administration's claims of achieving victory over Iran. He argued that the war gave Iran greater economic influence because its threats to attack ships in the Strait of Hormuz worried oil exporters.
Obama said: “Iran now has veto power over the Strait of Hormuz, through which oil passes on its way to the world.”
He also accused the Trump administration of focusing on unimportant matters, sarcastically describing Secretary of War Pete Hegseth as someone who is “too focused on important things like the shape of the jaw and the testosterone levels of our soldiers,” and mocked the White House renovations as banal.
Authorities in the US state of Florida said that a shooting near a university campus in the city of Tallahassee, yesterday evening, Saturday, resulted in 11 people being injured by gunfire and the injury of another person, according to Reuters news agency.
The university said that the shooting occurred near the Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University campus on Perry Street, while police counted six adults and six minors among the injured.
“At this time, at least three of those injured in the shooting are suffering from serious injuries, while nine others are reported to be in stable condition,” the Tallahassee Police Department said.
Police said preliminary results showed that a “physical altercation” preceded the shooting, without providing further details.
Police Chief Lawrence Revell said: “It is extremely painful to know that among those injured are children.”
The New York Post reported that the youngest person injured by gunshot wounds was 11 years old, but the police have not yet responded to a request from Reuters for comment.
The newspaper added that a quarrel at a homecoming celebration escalated into gunfire, and that a quarrel between two or three people led to gunshots being fired shortly before eight in the evening.
Police said their Violent Crimes Unit is investigating the circumstances of the incident.
Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University said in a post on the “X” platform: “The safety and security of our students, faculty and staff remains our top priority.”
US President Donald Trump cast his ballot in the midterm elections on Saturday, saying he had voted for all Republican candidates in Florida before speaking at a campaign rally in Georgia.
Donald Trump and First Lady Melania arrived together at the Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections office in West Palm Beach to cast their votes, after the president spent the morning at the nearby golf course.
After casting his vote in response to journalists' questions regarding the issue of corruption as a major issue for voters, Trump said that this is happening in areas and cities controlled by Democrats, according to what Agence France-Presse reported.
He added from inside the polling station in West Palm Beach, near his residence in Mar-a-Lago: “You must look at the real corruption, it is the corruption of the Democrats.”
The Republican billionaire - who has always refused to acknowledge his defeat in the 2020 presidential elections, claiming without any basis that there had been widespread fraud - put forward new allegations in this context, on Saturday, alleging the presence of invalid ballots in Los Angeles, a city with a Democratic majority.
10 days before the midterm elections, the results of which are usually unfavorable for the party that occupies the White House, Trump is facing declining opinion polls indicating the possibility of him losing control of the House of Representatives, and perhaps even the Senate.
Without a majority in Congress, the 80-year-old president will find himself without room for maneuver to pass his legislative program during the last two years of his term.
He may also face many parliamentary investigations from Democrats who have expressed their desire to scrutinize the business deals concluded by the president and those close to him through the family holding company since his return to the White House.
