US midterms: Obama blasts Trump's 'chaos and cruelty' while campaigning for Democrats

Just over a week to go before US midterms, in which the Republicans appear to be on shaky ground. Donald Trump is very much out on the campaign trail. He's been ramping up his attacks on US Senate candidate Abdul al-Sayed by linking him to Muslim extremists. In return, former President Barack Obama has also hit the campaign trail on behalf of the Democrats, accusing the Republican president of corruption, among many other criticisms. Let's cross now to Fraser Jackson in Washington, Fraser, Barack Obama is renowned for being very dignified and circumspect whenever he's been talking about or asked questions about Donald Trump, but he certainly didn't hold back this weekend, did he? Yes, the most popular living US president, President Barack Obama, hitting the campaign trail this past weekend, making stops in both Ohio and Michigan as the races in both states heat up. President Obama has been no stranger to saying how he feels about President Trump's presidency and on the stops in Cleveland and Detroit. He looked to draw a line of comparison between Trump's priorities this time around and the impact on the lives of everyday Americans. He said Trump's second term has been, quote, two years of chaos and cruelty and corruption and incompetence. He argued that the White House's policies have driven up the cost of living for Americans including the cost of diesel and gasoline that we've seen in the last few months and part of that has of course been the war in Iran in which President Obama said Trump had effectively handed Iran what he called veto power over the Strait of Hormuz but he also lashed out at President Trump's tariff policies those are two things of weakness in President Trump's America first platform because they were the two most public issues which Trump cannot blame on Congress or anybody else he really owns those two issues himself having circumvented Congress to get those across the line and President Trump's White House renovation projects also criticized by Obama the former president saying that the White House now looks like Saddam Hussein opened a cheesecake factory invoking a very popular albeit eclectically decorated restaurant chain here in the U.S. and finally in Michigan Obama pushed back against the Republican narrative surrounding The Senate candidate there, Abdel El-Sayed, his Egyptian and Muslim heritage has been the eye and the line of attack for many Republicans, including the president, President Trump. Well, Obama invoked his own personal experience with this, saying, quote, We have seen this movie before. I starred in it. I've got a long, long form birth certificate to prove it. This stuff didn't work on me and it's not going to work on Abdel. Fraser, also tell us more about the U.S. Justice Department's lawsuit to block Alaska's election results. Yeah, this has been President Trump's latest attempt to undermine Americans' confidence in the electoral system. Trump now not even shying away from decades of established norms that the DOJ and the White House operate independently. He told the press corps before he headed to Florida over the weekend, quote, I'm the one that's said to do it. So this is basically Trump and his Justice Department arguing here that there are two candidates on the ballot in Alaska with the same name, that being Dan Sullivan. And that could cause confusion for voters. So Trump has gone further in recent months, though, saying that the independence of Sullivan running as effective is running effectively as a Democratic Party plant designed to siphon off votes from the Republican incumbents. That's despite the fact that both Sullivans on the ticket are registered Republicans and the outside challenger, Sullivan, has no party affiliation listed next to his name on the ballot. So this lawsuit, which is highly unusual, seeks to block state election officials from certifying the U.S. Senate election results if the incumbent Republican Senator Dan S. Sullivan loses to Democratic challenger Mary Peltola. The thing is, though, the federal government has no authority to tell Alaska how to certify its election results, state officials follow state election law. That's been outlined by the Constitution. So it seems then that this lawsuit won't really go anywhere. But nevertheless, it has ignited the fears of many of Trump's critics that this election won't unfold plainly. Fraser Jackson reporting there from Washington. Thank you.