Republicans
backing away from GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump still share the
blame for stoking “the swamp of crazy” that fueled Trump’s rise to the
top of their party’s ticket, President Barack Obama said Thursday in
Ohio.
“Don’t act like this started with
Donald Trump,” Obama told state Democrats at their annual dinner. “He
did take it to a whole new level, I’ve got to give him credit. But he
didn’t come out of nowhere.”
Obama aimed most of his criticisms
past the GOP nominee and at Republicans who allowed conspiracy theories
and the anger of the party’s base to grow to the point that Trump was
able to commandeer it. That includes those who un-endorsed Trump, as
Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) did on Saturday, after a 2005 video revealed
Trump bragging about using his fame to assault women.
“They don’t get credit for, at the
very last minute, when finally the guy that they nominated and they
endorsed and they supported is caught on tape saying things that no
decent person would even think, much less say, much less brag about,
much less laugh about or joke about, much less act on,” Obama said at
the dinner.
“You can’t wait until that finally
happens and then say, ‘Oh, that’s too much, that’s enough,’ and think
that somehow you are showing any kind of leadership and deserve to be
elected to the United States Senate,” he continued. “You don’t get
points for that. In fact, I’m more forgiving of the people who actually
believe it than the people who know better and stood silently by out of
political expediency.”
Portman announced
that he will no longer support Trump for the presidency and will vote
for the Republican vice presidential nominee, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence,
instead. The senator is seeking re-election against former Democratic
Gov. Ted Strickland, whom Obama praised at the event. Portman leads
Strickland in polls by 13 percentage points, according to a HuffPost Pollster average of surveys.
Other Republicans also un-endorsed Trump after his 2005 remarks were uncovered, although some have since switched back and said they would vote for Trump.
House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) still endorses Trump, but said he would no longer defend him, while Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has avoided speaking on the matter. In the days since the video was published, multiple women have alleged they were sexually assaulted by Trump, which he has denied.
Obama questioned the Republican message: “You claim the mantle of the party of family values and this is the guy you nominate?”
He accused Republicans of laying the
groundwork for Trump by “feeding their base all kinds of crazy for
years, primarily for political expedience.”
One example was Trump’s long-running
lie that Obama wasn’t born in the U.S. ― an attack on the first black
president that most Republicans declined to condemn. Trump took until last month ― well after the GOP nominated him ― to acknowledge he believes Obama was born in the U.S.
“If Trump was running around saying I
wasn’t born here, they were okay with that as long as it helped them
with votes,” Obama said. “If some of these folks on talk radio started
talking about how I was the antichrist, ‘Well, you know, it’s just
politics.’ You think I’m joking.”
Obama also criticized Texas
Republican Sen. Ted Cruz and Gov. Greg Abbott for fueling a conspiracy
theory that the president was attempting to launch martial law in Texas,
pretending they didn’t know about a military training exercise.
“What do you mean, you don’t know?
What does that mean? Really? You think that like, the entire Pentagon
said, ‘Oh, really, you know, you want to declare martial law and take
over Texas? Let’s do it under the guise of routine training missions,’”
Obama said. “They took it seriously. This is in the swamp of crazy that
has been fed over and over and over again.”
Obama said that’s why the Republican Party is where it is today.
“They stood by while this happened,” he said. “And Donald Trump, as he’s prone to do, he didn’t build the building himself, but he just slapped his name on it and took credit for it.”
