There were many speeches and attacks on Donald Trump at the Democratic National Convention last week, but one jab from former President Barack Obama really got under Trump’s skin, New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman told CNN.
“This is a 78-year-old billionaire who hasn’t stopped whining about his problems since he rode down his golden escalator nine years ago,” Obama said to the crowd in Chicago. “The childish nicknames and crazy conspiracy theories and weird obsession with crowd size,” he added, using both hands to make a suggestive gesture.
Trump is “very reactive” to both Barack and Michelle Obama and both of their speeches at the DNC “got under his skin,” Haberman told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer.
"What you also saw were comments that I think were designed to bait Trump," Haberman noted. "That was one of them."
Trump and the Obamas have a historically combative relationship, with Trump having been a leading promoter of false claims that the Democrat was not born in the United States. In her own speech at the DNC, Michelle Obama said Trump did “everything in his power” to make Americans fear her and her husband.
“His limited and narrow view of the world made him feel threatened by the existence of two hardworking, highly educated, successful people who also happened to be Black,” she told the crowd.
Many DNC speakers took aim at the Republican nominee and Haberman said they were “pretty focused’ in their messaging.
“We heard it over and over again from the Obamas, from the vice president, from others that, you know, he is a rich guy who cares about his rich friends,” she said.
Jabs at the former president were made in the hopes that he would react aggressively, she added.
“The more that Trump reacts self-destructively, the better Democrats feel it is for them,” Haberman said.
