By Staff, Agencies

Former US president Barack Obama said the Trump administration had turned the presidency into a “reality show” in his speech to the Democratic convention, holding up Joe Biden as a panacea for all of the country’s troubles.

Addressing the third night of his party’s national convention on Wednesday, the ex-POTUS took an uncharacteristically harsh tone on President Donald Trump, saying he hadn’t “grown into the job because he can’t” while laying blame for the Covid-19 crisis squarely on his administration.

The consequences of Trump’s failures have been “severe,” he went on, holding him ultimately responsible for “170,000 Americans dead” in the pandemic, “millions of jobs gone, ... our proud reputation around the world badly diminished, and our democratic institutions threatened like never before.”

Obama insisted that a Biden administration would make that all go away and then some, vowing that he would bring Covid-19 “under control,” “expand healthcare,” “rescue the economy” and “restore our standing in the world” – quite a tall order. 

Trump met the speech with a number of tweets – in standard all-caps style – blasting the former president for spying on his 2016 campaign while questioning his sluggish endorsement for Biden, which didn’t come until a late stage in the primary season.

Obama’s address also became a hot topic elsewhere on social media, prompting fawning reactions from supporters, who dubbed the talk “spell-binding”, “expertly delivered” and “truly presidential.” Critics of Trump, meanwhile, compared his two-tweet response to the speech itself, apparently finding it lacking.

Some observers noted that Obama’s speech departed from his typical “uplifting promises of hope and change,” however, instead focusing on “negativity” and “complaints.”