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(CNN) — Former President Barack Obama said at a private fundraiser Monday evening that Donald Trump is “somebody who White nationalists explicitly rally around,” going further than how he has ripped into the former president in a series of intense recent campaign rallies.
The comments, relayed to CNN by two people who heard the remarks, came in response to a question Obama took from the small audience at the Chicago home of Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker. The fundraiser brought in $4 million for Kamala Harris’ campaign
Speaking about Harris and referencing both Trump hosting Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes at Mar-a-Lago in 2022 and his reaction to the 2017 White nationalist march in Charlottesville, Virginia, Obama said: “She’s running against a guy who had lunch with a Holocaust denier. When there was a march with lanterns, the only thing missing was the pitchforks, saying, ‘We shall not be replaced.’ He said, ‘There are good people on both sides.’”
The comments come as Trump has dug in deeper with his anti-immigrant rhetoric and warned of “an enemy from within,” with his former White House chief of staff John Kelly going public with remarks that Trump made multiple approving comments about Adolf Hitler. The former president’s campaign has denied the allegations.
While Trump is appealing to Americans’ worst impulses, Obama said Monday, Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, are appealing to their best impulses.
Obama said Trump is “tapping into what may already be some underlying biases that people have, and he’s stoking them.” What starts as people thinking it’s funny to have Trump put down immigrants, the disabled or other groups, Obama said, then leads to people who “start feeling, ‘Oh, this is fair game.’”
The effect of Trump’s comments, Obama said, isn’t just felt by the people targeted by the “punching down” or by US politics. But it also affects Americans’ interactions with each other and children who hear this.
“When those guardrails start breaking down, then that changes the tenor of not just our public discourse, but our private discourse,” Obama said. “Our kids soak it in, in ways that are destructive.”
As CNN previously reported, Obama is in the middle of his busiest end-of-election push since his own last campaign, appearing so far in Pennsylvania, Arizona, Nevada, Wisconsin and Michigan. He has another stop planned Thursday evening in what will be his first joint appearance on the trail with Harris – and with Bruce Springsteen set to perform. He’s also been appearing in a flush of ads for Senate candidates and joining online influencers and podcasters for interviews. More are expected to be announced soon.
Obama’s speeches at these rallies have been a combination of him mocking Trump – for example, alleging that he doesn’t know how to work a truck or that he never changed a diaper – and also attempting to dismantle the former president’s claims about his record, with a major emphasis on arguing that the strong economic record Trump often points to was from “my economy.”
For Obama, this is both personal and political. He has appealed to voters, with an emphasis on Black men, not to give up on government because they feel it’s fallen short, or because they feel an affinity for Trump.
The-CNN-Wire
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