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Trump Hits Back at “Disastrous” Obama

Trump Hits Back at “Disastrous” Obama
Trump Hits Back at “Disastrous” Obama

Donald Trump has dismissed US Barack Obama’s time in the White House as a “disaster” after the US president said he was not fit to succeed him.

“He’s been weak, he’s been ineffective,” Republican candidate Trump said of Obama in a Fox News interview on Tuesday. Obama has questioned why Trump’s party has not disowned him.

Trump has also turned on two senior figures in his own party who have publicly criticized him. In an interview for the Washington Post, he refused to endorse House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senator John McCain, who are up for reelection in November, BBC reported.

Amid the feuding within Republican ranks, prominent party donor and fundraiser Meg Whitman has publicly endorsed Democrat Hillary Clinton, saying Donald Trump’s “demagoguery” had undermined the national fabric.

“To vote Republican out of party loyalty alone would be to endorse a candidacy that I believe has exploited anger, grievance, xenophobia and racial division,” she wrote on Facebook. “Trump’s unsteady hand would endanger our prosperity and national security. His authoritarian character could threaten much more.”

French President Francois Hollande joined the chorus of criticism on Tuesday, saying that Trump made people “feel nauseous”. He warned that a Trump presidential election victory could herald a very strong turn to the right around the world.

Speaking to Fox, Trump said Obama had been “the worst president, maybe, in the history of our country”.

Trump has also been condemned for his comments that appeared to back the Russian annexation of Crimea. But he retorted: “I believe I know far more about foreign policy than he [Obama] knows.

“Look at Ukraine. He talks about Ukraine [and] how tough he is with Russia. In the meantime they took over Crimea.”

Obama and Clinton, his one-time secretary of state, had “destabilized the Middle East” while putting the “country at risk” with Clinton’s use of a private email server, he said.

Trump is under fire for attacking the parents of a dead US Muslim soldier after they criticized him at the Democratic convention last week. At the convention, Khizr Khan, whose son died while serving in Iraq, criticized Trump’s plan to temporarily ban Muslims from entering the US.

Trump responded by attacking the couple who are called in the US a “Gold Star” family, the term for families that have lost a close relative in war. Democratic and Republican leaders as well as veterans’ groups quickly condemned him.

“The Republican nominee is unfit to serve as president and he keeps on proving it,” Obama said on Tuesday.

“The notion that he would attack a Gold Star family that made such extraordinary sacrifices ... means that he is woefully unprepared to do this job.”

New York Representative Richard Hanna became the first Republican member of Congress to publicly say he would vote for Clinton. Hanna said Trump’s comments about the Khan family had been the deciding factor.

Until recently, many Republicans opposed to Trump had stopped short of supporting Clinton, saying they would vote for a third party or “write-in” candidate.

Financialtribune.com