Former President Barack Obama gave a speech in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on Wednesday in which he claimed President Donald Trump won the 2016 election because voters were “lazy and complacent.”
Obama delivered a speech on behalf of Democratic Party presidential nominee Joe Biden before a parking lot full of cars, in what was billed as a socially distant “voter mobilization event.” He said:
We can’t have any doubt. We can’t be complacent. I don’t care about the polls. There were a whole bunch of polls last time. Didn’t work out, because a whole bunch of folks stayed at home and got lazy and complacent. Not this time. Not in this election. Not this time!
There were cheers and honks of approval.
Obama has made similar criticisms of voters in the past. In 2011, the year after Republicans won a historic victory in the U.S. House, then-President Obama appeared to blame black voters for electoral setbacks, telling the Congressional Black Caucus in a speech: “Take off your bedroom slippers, put on your marching shoes. Shake it off. Stop complaining, stop grumbling, stop crying.” The remarks drew criticism from black leaders.
Pennsylvania is considered a key battleground state in the 2020 election. Trump won it in 2016, defying the polls and sealing victory in the early hours of November 9, when the state was called for him and pushed him past the 270 votes required in the Electoral College.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). His newest e-book is The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency. His recent book, RED NOVEMBER, tells the story of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary from a conservative perspective. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
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