‘He messed it up’: Obama enters campaign with brutal Trump slap down

Referring to Trump’s handling of the economy, Obama said: “Like everything else he inherited, he messed it up.”

Obama also took a jab at Trump for attracting fewer viewers at a recent town hall than Democratic nominee Joe Biden.

“By the way, his TV ratings are down,” Obama said. “So you know that upsets him. But the thing is, this is not a reality show. This is reality. And the rest of us have had to live with the consequences of him proving himself incapable of taking the job seriously.”

Obama promised Americans that if Biden and Harris win the election then “you won’t have to think about the crazy things they said every day”.

“You’re not going to have to argue about them every day,” he said.

“It just won’t be so exhausting. You might be able to have a Thanksgiving dinner without an argument.”

He said Americans had become numb to Trump’s unconventional behaviour, such as regularly calling for political opponents to be sent to jail.

“We wouldn’t tolerate it from a high school principal. We wouldn’t tolerate it from a coach.

We wouldn’t tolerate it from a co-worker, we wouldn’t tolerate it, you know, in our family, except for maybe crazy uncle somewhere,” he said.

Referring to Trump’s handling of the coronavirus, Obama said: “Donald Trump isn’t suddenly going to protect all of us. He can’t even take the basic steps to protect himself.”

He added: “We literally left this White House a pandemic playbook that would have shown them how to respond before the virus reached our shores. They probably used it to, I don’t know, prop up a wobbly table somewhere.”

He also seized upon recent reports in The New York Times that Trump had a secret bank account in China.

“Can you imagine if I had had a secret Chinese bank account when I was running for reelection?” Obama asked. “You think Fox News might have been a little concerned about that? They would have called me ‘Beijing Barry’.”

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With 13 days remaining until election day, Obama urged Democrats not to be complacent, reminding them that Hillary Clinton was an overwhelming favourite four years ago.

“What we do over the next 13 days will matter for decades to come,” he said.

Biden retains a sizeable advantage over Trump in the polls, but his lead has declined from its peak after the first presidential debate. Biden leads Trump by 7.5 per cent nationally, according to the RealClearPolitics average, down from a lead of 10.3 on October 11.

Biden’s average lead in the key battleground states ranges from 2.1 per cent in Florida to 7.8 in Michigan.