'Over her head': Trump slams Michelle Obama's DNC speech as 'divisive' and unworthy of 'fawning reviews'
WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump punched back Tuesday at former first lady Michelle Obama, calling her speech to the Democratic National Convention “extremely divisive” and unworthy of praise.
"She was over her head,” Trump said, repeating a slightly mangled version of a line Obama used to describe him.
“She gets these fawning reviews,” Trump said during a White House ceremony commemorating the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment, which gave women the right to vote. “If you gave a real review, it wouldn’t be so fawning.”
Trump’s critique came just hours after the wife of former President Barack Obama delivered a blistering attack on him during the opening night of the Democratic National Convention.
In taped remarks, the former first lady called Trump “the wrong president for our country.”
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“He has had more than enough time to prove that he can do the job, but he is clearly in over his head,” she said. “He cannot meet this moment. He simply cannot be who we need him to be for us. It is what it is.”
Obama was using Trump's own words against him. In a recent interview, Trump said "it is what it is" when asked about the number of coronavirus deaths in the U.S.
The full speech:Read Michelle Obama's full keynote speech at the Democratic National Convention
In urging Americans to vote for presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden, Michelle Obama said Trump botched the response to the COVID-19 pandemic and lacks the capacity to lead the country through the crisis. “You simply cannot fake your way through this job,” she said.
She also criticized the administration's treatment of migrant families at the border and the president's response to the Black Lives Matter protests.
“They watch in horror as children are torn from their families and thrown into cages, and pepper spray and rubber bullets are used on peaceful protesters for a photo-op,” she said. "That's not just disappointing, but downright infuriating."
In his retort on Tuesday, Trump focused more on style than substance. He criticized Obama for taping her speech instead of delivering it live, noting that she never mentioned Biden's running mate, California Sen. Kamala Harris. Obama's speech was taped before Biden chosen Harris to be on the Democratic ticket.
“I thought it was a very divisive,” Trump said of the former first lady's remarks.
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Trump said he was elected because of Barack Obama and Biden, who served as vice president.
"I wouldn't be in the White House except for Barack Obama," he said. "Because they did a bad job – Biden and Obama. If they did a good job, I wouldn’t be here. I’d be building buildings someplace and having a good time.”
Aides to Barack Obama said Trump resents the former president's many accomplishments and suggested that race may be a factor in his enmity. Former foreign policy aide Ben Rhodes said the current president has an "Obama inferiority complex."
"It’s never been any failures of Barack and Michelle Obama which drove Trump crazy – it’s been their successes," Rhodes tweeted. "Wonder why."
Trump also attacked another Democratic convention speaker, Republican-turned-Biden endorser John Kasich. The former Ohio governor "did a bad job," and ran a poor campaign for the Republican nomination in 2016, the president tweeted on Tuesday.
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