Former President Barack Obama delivered his sharpest attack yet on President Donald Trump on Saturday, October 24, 2026, telling midterm rallies in Cleveland, Ohio, and Detroit, Michigan, that voters have a chance to say “Enough is enough” after “two years of chaos and cruelty and corruption and incompetence.”
Ohio: the Iran war and the cost of living
In Cleveland, Obama campaigned for former Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown, who is seeking to reclaim a Senate seat, and Democratic gubernatorial candidate Amy Acton. He blamed the Trump administration for rising living costs, a top voter concern amid soaring fuel prices, and he attacked the decision to go to war with Iran.
“The current president chose to make a series of bad decisions,” Obama said in Cleveland. “Most importantly, he decided to start an unnecessary war that nobody asked for.” He argued that the war has given Iran more economic leverage, because its threats to attack shipping in the Strait of Hormuz have unsettled oil exporters, saying: “Iran now has veto power over the Strait of Hormuz, where oil goes through to get to the world.”
Michigan: a “circuit breaker” for the presidency
Later on Saturday evening, Obama headed to Detroit to campaign for Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed and Democratic gubernatorial candidate Jocelyn Benson. El-Sayed, from the party’s left wing, is in a close race with Republican Mike Rogers for a Senate seat that could help decide control of Congress.
There, Obama framed the November 3 vote as a “circuit breaker” to “at least rein in some of the foolishness” of Trump’s presidency. He added: “We have never seen a president excel in straight-up grifting, on your dime, like this,” and said the Republican Party “seems to stand for corrupt government, or inept government, or no government.” He also urged voters to cast their ballots early, saying: “Don’t procrastinate, don’t equivocate.”
What both sides are saying
Democrats are attempting to wrest back control of one or both chambers of Congress, currently controlled by Trump’s Republican Party, and they hope Obama’s popularity with the Democratic base can energize supporters in tight races. A Reuters/Ipsos poll in August found that 63 percent of Americans think the president and his family have inappropriately profited from cryptocurrency since he returned to the White House, and 69 percent believe his policy decisions are influenced by his private business dealings.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Obama’s remarks, according to Reuters. Trump, meanwhile, responded on Truth Social on Sunday, urging Michigan voters to choose Rogers. With ten days to go until the November 3 midterms, Obama’s intervention has turned the campaign’s final stretch into a direct clash between two presidents, and both parties are treating the vote as a verdict on the Trump presidency itself.
Sources: Al Jazeera, Reuters, The Hindu
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