Speaking at a rally in Las Vegas, Obama accused the Republican presidential nominee and his running mate, Sen. JD Vance (Ohio), of leaning on scaremongering about immigration as an answer to any issue.
“If you challenge them, they’ll fall back on one answer. It does not matter what it is — housing, health care, education, paying for the bills — one answer: blame the immigrants,” he said.
“He wants you to believe that if you elect him, he will just round up whoever he wants and ship them out and all your problems will be solved,” he added.
He acknowledged that there’s a “real issue” at the border and elements of the system are “broken,” but criticized Trump’s approach.
“When I hear Donald Trump talk ... he’s very quick to say to Kamala, ‘Well, you were vice president for four years,’” he added. “Dude, you were president for four years!”
“As I recall, you were up there in the Oval Office,” Obama went on. “So if rounding up and deporting millions of desperate people, many of them who are women and children, if that’s the answer to everything, well, why is it that the number of undocumented immigrants were basically the same when he left office as when he took office?”
“He didn’t solve the problem, and I’ll tell you why. Because he does not have a real plan. He has a concept of a plan, and it’s a mean and ugly plan designed to foster resentment and divide people,” he added.