During a speech on the economy in Indiana on Wednesday, President Obama tore into Donald Trump and the Republicans’ plans to fix the American economy.
The President criticized Trump calls to deport undocumented immigrants and promises of better trade deals.
“That will not help us win,” Obama said. “That is not going to make your lives better. That will help people like him.”
In an allusion to Trump, Obama told the audience not to “fall for a bunch of okey doke just because you know it sounds funny or the tweets are provocative.”
“When I hear working families thinking’ about voting for those plans, then I want to have an intervention,” he said.
Obama said that Trump’s “fantasy” of mass deportation of undocumented immigrants “wouldn’t do anything to help the middle class.”
During his speech, Obama mostly avoided using Trump’s name, and later explained why he did so in a PBS town hall.
“He seems to do a good job mention his own name,” Obama replied when asked why he doesn’t use the real estate mogul’s name. “I’ll let him do his advertising for him.”
During the town hall, the President said he understood why Americans were angry and unhappy with the state of the economy, but he argued that Trump won’t be able to fix it.
“Even though we’ve recovered, people feel like the ground under their feet isn’t quite as solid,” he said. “And in those circumstances, a lot of times it’s easy for somebody to come up and say, ‘You know what? If we deport all the immigrants and build a wall; or if we cut off trade with China; or if we do x or y or z,’ some simple answer, and suddenly, everything’s going to feel secure.”
He also tore into Trump’s talking points on free trade.
“When somebody says, like the person you just mentioned who I’m not going to advertise for, that he’s going to bring all those jobs back, well, how exactly are you going to do that? What are you going to do? There’s no answer to it,” Obama said at the town hall. “He just says, ‘I’m going to negotiate a better deal.’ Well, how exactly are you going to negotiate that? What magic wand do you have? And usually the answer is he doesn’t have an answer.”
