Widening Attack on G.O.P., Obama Targets Marco Rubio in Florida
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Version 0 of 1. MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. — President Obama joined a parade of Democrats on Thursday in rebuking Donald J. Trump for threatening not to abide by the results of the election. But he saved his thorniest barbs for Senator Marco Rubio, the Florida Republican who endorsed Mr. Trump after labeling him a “dangerous con artist” during their bitter primary battle. “How can he call him a con artist and dangerous, and object to all the controversial things he’s said, but then say, ‘I’m still going to vote for him?’” Mr. Obama said to a boisterous crowd at a Hillary Clinton rally at a historically black college in this swing state. “C’mon, man,” he said. “That is the sign of someone who will say anything, do anything, pretend to be anybody just to get elected,” said Mr. Obama, as he praised Representative Patrick Murphy, who is waging an uphill battle to unseat Mr. Rubio. “If you’re willing to be anybody just to be somebody, man, you don’t have the leadership that Florida needs in the United States Senate.” Mr. Obama’s assault on Mr. Rubio showcased the president’s determination to broaden his indictment of Mr. Trump into an indictment of the Republican Party, parts of which continue to support the nominee, even after a calamitous few weeks in which he was heard speaking about women in crudely sexual terms in a 2005 recording and then declared in his debate with Mrs. Clinton on Wednesday that he might not accept the voters’ verdict on Election Day. Speaking to a crowd of 2,800 at Florida Memorial University, in a tone that was sarcastic even by his sardonic standards, Mr. Obama asked how Republicans could stand by a candidate who called women pigs; threatened to silence reporters, jail his opponent, and expel Muslims from the country; and cozied up to the autocratic leader of Russia. “If you’ve made a career of idolizing Ronald Reagan,” he said, “then where were you when your party’s nominee for president was kissing up to Vladimir Putin, the former K.G.B. officer.” “I agree with the U.S. senator, a Republican, who a while back said that we cannot afford to give the nuclear codes of the United States to an erratic individual,” Mr. Obama said. “By the way, you know who said that?” he added, pausing for his punch line, “Marco Rubio.” Mr. Obama repeated his criticism of Mr. Trump for suggesting that he would dispute the results of the election if he lost. After lampooning his assertion of widespread voter fraud — and questioning whether he had ever visited a polling place — the president struck a serious note. “That’s not a joking matter,” he said. “That is dangerous. When you try to sow the seeds of doubt in people’s minds about the legitimacy of our elections, that undermines our democracy.” The president’s wife, Michelle, speaking in Phoenix on Thursday, made a passionate case against Mr. Trump, portraying him as a bigoted elitist out of touch with the concerns of ordinary people and untethered from the values that undergird American democracy. Making a direct appeal to Republicans and independent voters in a traditionally right-leaning state, Mrs. Obama contrasted Mr. Trump’s privileged upbringing with the middle-class roots she and Mr. Obama share with Mrs. Clinton, arguing that he lacks the empathy to lead the country. “Perhaps living life high up in a tower in a world of exclusive clubs, measuring success by wins and losses, the number of zeros in your bank account, perhaps you just develop a different set of values,” Mrs. Obama said, drawing boos and hisses from a crowd of 7,000 in a convention center downtown, as she referred to Mr. Trump without naming him. “Maybe with so little exposure to people who are different than you, it becomes easy to take advantage of those who are down on their luck, folks who play by the rules, pay what they owe, because to you, those folks just aren’t very smart and seem somehow less deserving.” Mrs. Obama denounced Mr. Trump for suggesting that he might not accept the outcome of the election, urging voters to recognize it as an effort to discourage them from casting ballots and to reject it forcefully. “When a presidential candidate threatens to ignore our voices and reject the outcome of this election, he is threatening the very idea of America itself, and we cannot stand for that,” she said. “You do not keep American democracy ‘in suspense,’” Mrs. Obama added, seeking to turn Mr. Trump’s equivocating words in Wednesday’s debate against him. Mrs. Obama’s appearance in Phoenix underlined a remarkable turn in the race, as Mrs. Clinton presses to widen her growing advantage over Mr. Trump and use it to help down-ballot Democrats in areas normally considered out of their reach. Mrs. Clinton’s decision to deploy Mrs. Obama, perhaps her most potent surrogate, was the latest evidence that her campaign believes that Mr. Trump’s vulnerability could sweep Mrs. Clinton to victory in Republican-leaning states, carrying a broader slate of Democrats into Congress along with her. Mrs. Obama’s speech on Thursday was a far broader indictment of Mr. Trump than her remarks last week in New Hampshire, when she spoke in deeply personal terms about Mr. Trump’s demeaning remarks about women. She said that speech, a striking moment in the campaign, had sparked an outpouring of letters and emails to her office. “Here’s what I’m asking,” Mrs. Obama said. “If you liked that speech, then go vote.” In Florida, her husband mixed campaigning for Mrs. Clinton with a defense of his marquee legislative accomplishment, the Affordable Care Act. Speaking earlier, at Miami Dade College, Mr. Obama hailed the law’s progress in enrolling people in health insurance plans, even as he conceded there were flaws in the program. Mr. Obama said he hoped the next president, working with Congress, would undertake the repair work. With him no longer in the picture, he mused, Republicans might be more willing to collaborate — and he said he would be fine with them taking credit for it. “They can even change the name of the law to ReaganCare. Or they can call it Paul Ryan Care,” he said. “I don’t care.” |