Trump downplays Obama's return to campaign trail, says he was 'all over the place' for Hillary Clinton

President Trump dismissed Barack Obama’s potential impact on the 2020 election on Wednesday after his predecessor returned to the campaign trail to rally support for Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden.

Trump told supporters in Gastonia, N.C., that it “took forever” for Obama to publicly support Biden’s bid for the presidency. The president detailed a conversation with a staffer who said Obama’s comeback could be “bad news” for his re-election campaign.

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“Somebody said, ‘Sir, maybe this isn’t good. President Obama’s campaigning for Sleepy Joe Biden.’ I said, 'That’s good news or bad news? Tell me, are you saying it’s good or it’s bad?' ‘Well, I guess it’s bad.’ No, it’s good,” Trump said at the rally. “There is nobody that campaigned harder for 'Crooked' Hillary Clinton than Obama. He was all over the place.”

Obama delivered his first in-person speech on behalf of Biden at an event in Philadelphia, shortly before Trump took the stage in North Carolina. The president did not address Obama’s remarks at that event.

Trump noted he overcame Obama’s efforts to campaign on Hillary Clinton’s behalf prior to the 2016 election.

“He said ‘he will not be our president.’ Before that, he said ‘he will not run.’ Then I ran. Then he said, ‘he will not get the nomination.’ Then I got the nomination. Then he said, ‘he will not be our president.’ Then I won,” Trump added. “The only one more unhappy than Crooked Hillary that night was Barack Hussein Obama.”

In his Philadelphia speech, Obama ripped the Trump administration’s response to the coronavirus pandemic. He argued that Trump inherited the “longest streak of job growth in American history” and “messed it up.”

“He hasn’t shown any interest in doing the work or helping anybody but himself and his friends,” Obama said at the event. “This is not a reality show. This is reality, and the rest of us have had to live with the consequences of him proving himself incapable of taking the job seriously.”

Trump also took aim at Biden during the Gastonia rally, repeating his frequent allegation that the former vice president is a “corrupt” politician.

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The president accused prominent media outlets and technology firms of attempting to suppress a New York Post report on a laptop that purportedly contained emails exchanged between Hunter Biden and business associates in China and Ukraine.

“If Biden wins, China will own the United States. The media and the big tech are desperately trying to cover up this massive scandal,” Trump said. “I’m not just running against Joe Biden. I’m running against the corrupt media. They’re corrupt. The corrupt media, the big tech giants and I’m running against the Washington swamp.”

“It’s time to deliver a message to these wealthy liberal hypocrites by delivering Joe Biden a thundering defeat on Nov. 3,” he added.