Obama Lights Into 'Cruelty, Corruption' in Midterms Debut

A former president gave the current one an earful on Saturday. Barack Obama stepped back onto the campaign trail for the first time during the midterms campaign and forcefully attacked President Trump, as well as Ohio GOP candidate Vivek Ramaswamy. At a rally in Cleveland for Democratic gubernatorial nominee Amy Acton and Senate candidate Sherrod Brown, Obama branded Trump's administration "incompetence the likes of which we have not seen in modern times," the New York Times reports. He described the past two years as "chaos and cruelty and corruption."

Obama reserved some of his sharpest language for Ramaswamy over an ad featuring Acton's estranged mother, saying it suggested there was "no line" the Republican won't cross. Acton told the rally the spot was an intentional exploitation of a childhood marked by abuse, saying Ramaswamy was using her family "save his struggling campaign." Two Florida Democrats posted new videos with Obama endorsing them, per the Hill—gubernatorial nominee David Jolly and Senate nominee Angie Nixon. Trump was scheduled to appear at an event in Perry, Georgia, later in the evening.