WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump criticized Michelle Obama on Tuesday, calling her Democratic National Convention speech "divisive" and inaccurate.
"It was a divisive speech. Devoid of facts and it wasn't current. It was all old. It was done probably two, three weeks ago," Trump said in Yuma, Arizona, where he was receiving an update on construction of a border wall between the U.S. and Mexico.
Trump was responding to the series of criticisms he faced Monday on the first night of the Democratic convention. Former Vice President Joe Biden's campaign staged an event that largely focused on delivering a scathing critique of Trump and his first term in office, with a series of speakers making the case to the American public that the Republican is unfit to hold office.
Trump continued his criticism of the former First Lady during a campaign speech at the Yuma airport, telling supporters that Democrats "want to bring unity, and then you listen to Michelle Obama’s speech, which was obsolete by the time it got there."
Obama pre-tapped her address, in which she said Trump is "in over his head," and the number of coronavirus deaths she cited was lower than the current total. Democrats are holding their convention virtually after canceling the larger gathering because of the ongoing pandemic.
"They talk about me being a divider. I’m not a divider," Trump said. "We were bringing people together like never before and then we got hit by the China virus.”
The Trump campaign has sought to paint Biden as a "puppet" for the more progressive wing of the party, a message the president echoed on Tuesday.
“I guess his new boss is Bernie Sanders, can you believe it?," Trump said of Biden. "Socialism is the mainstream of the Biden campaign.”
Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., spoke at the DNC on Monday night as well as multiple high-profile Republican politicians who threw their support behind Biden. During the primary, Biden was frequently critical of Sanders liberal policies on issues like health care.
Speaking just miles from the U.S.-Mexico border, Trump called Biden's immigration plan the "most radical, extreme, reckless, dangerous and deadly immigration plan ever put forward by a major party candidate."
Trump spoke to a crowd of a few hundred people in a blistering hot airplane hanger. The Trump campaign handed out water and “Make America Great Again” face masks to supporters as they awaited Air Force One’s arrival.
“This is like a test,” Trump said of the heat, trying to make his ability to speak in extreme weather further evidence that he is more fit for office. “You think Joe Biden could do it?"
