Barack Obama mocks Trump’s ‘weird obsession’ with size in speech full of attacks: Ex-president leads chants of ‘yes she can’ for Kamala Harris after his aides helped force Biden out of race

• Obama put his 2008 and 2012 slogans to use in his convention speech for Harris
• He mocked Trump and compared him to an annoying neighbor 

Former President Barack Obama resurrected his ‘hope’ and ‘change’ message from 2008 to fire up the Democratic National Convention and mocked his successor Donald Trump.

The first black president offered his support to another candidate with a ‘funny name’ – Kamala Harris – before comparing Trump to an annoying neighbor.

He told fellow Democrats in Chicago that ‘the torch has been passed’ to Harris and that the United States was ready for her to become president.

Obama went on to tear into Trump for ‘the childish nicknames and crazy conspiracy theories, this weird obsession with crowd sizes,’ earning a roar from the crowd at the United Center.

It was a line that brought to mind Trump’s recent bizarre claim that a large Harris crowd was fake, and Trump’s dubious claim to have had a larger inaugural crowd than Obama.

The attack, accompanied by a hand gesture, also appeared to echo jokes about the size of Trump’s hands that Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) briefly latched onto in the 2016 campaign.

‘We all knew what that hand gesture meant Barack Obama,’ former CNN host Don Lemon, taking the remark in a more suggestive way, posted on X.

At a convention where a string of speakers have gone after Trump for his policies, and videos have alternated between ridiculing him and calling him a grave threat, Obama weighed in.

‘We don’t need four more years of bluster and chaos. We’ve seen that movie – and we all know that the sequel is usually worse,’ he said to applause.

Former President Barack Obama ridiculed Donald Trump’s ‘weird obsession’ with crowd sizes in a convention speech where he called for ‘passing the torch’ to Kamala Harris

Barack Obama gestures as he mocks Donald Trump

The former president had the convention crowd on its feet when he brought back some of his favorite lines, including when he told the crowd: ‘Don’t boo: vote.’

‘I don’t know about you but I’m feeling fired up,’ he said early on, reminding Democrats of the cheer that was part of his own White House run. ‘I am feeling ready to go,’ he added.

Obama joked about the peril of following wife Michelle Obama after her opening speech, which nearly upstaged his own with a biting quip about Trump.

‘Who’s going to tell him (Trump) the job he’s currently seeking might be one of those black jobs?’ Michelle Obama said.

The former president has gotten under Trump’s skin in the past, and tried to do so again.

‘Here’s a 78-year-old billionaire who has not stopped whining about his problems since he rode down his golden escalator nine years ago. It’s been a constant stream of gripes and grievances that’s actually gotten worse now that he’s afraid of losing to Kamala,’ Obama said.

‘The other day, I heard someone compare Trump to this neighbor who keeps running his leaf blower outside your window every minute of the day,’ he quipped. ‘From a neighbor, that’s exhausting. From a president, it’s just dangerous,’ said Obama, who owns large homes in Washington, Chicago and Hawaii.

Obama may have been upstaged by his wife Michelle Obama, and joked about the challenge of going on after her

Obama’s attacks on Trump and praise of Harris had the crowd on its feet

Obama said Trump only considers the presidency as ‘a means to an ends.’

‘He wants the middle class to pay the price for another huge tax cut that would mostly help him and his rich friends,’ Obama said.

The attacks came after Trump had given an interview with some unusually kind words for Obama and Michelle Obama.

In addition to attacking Trump, Obama’s other mission was to ‘pass the torch,’ and he spent much of his speech building up Kamala Harris.

Obama, who launched to stardom in part through his own 2004 convention speech, did so at first by linking Harris to another unlikely politician – himself.

Former US President Barack Obama (R) walks to greet Former US First Lady Michelle Obama after she introduced him on the second day of the Democratic National Convention (DNC) at the United Center in Chicago,

‘I’m feeling hopeful because this convention has always been pretty good to kids with funny names who believe in a country where anything is possible,’ he said near the top of his remarks.

‘We are ready for a President Kamala Harris,’ he said.

It was another seal of approval after his former aides helped bring about the extraordinary change at the top of the ticket.

Obama gushed about his former sidekick President Joe Biden, who was on vacation in California 24 hours after his own convention speech, which ran past midnight.

Obama’s aides had been among the crucial figures pushing for Biden to get out of the race after his debate disaster against Trump in June. The episode brought back old tensions after Obama encouraged Biden not to run in 2016 as Hillary Clinton prepared her own ultimately unsuccessful run.

the former president called his own decision to pick Biden as his running mate in 2008 ‘one of my best,’ praising his ’empathy and his decency,’ as well as his ‘hard-earned resilience.’

‘History will remember Joe Biden as a president who defended democracy at a moment of great danger. I am proud to call him my president, but even prouder to call him my friend,’ he said.

He hailed Biden for ‘putting his own ambition aside for the sake of the country,’ and said he was a ‘steady’ leader ‘at a time when the other party had turned into a cult of personality.’

Former U.S. President Barack Obama gestures as he speaks on stage during the second day of the Democratic National Convention at the United Center on August 20, 2024 in Chicago

‘The torch has been passed. now it is up for all of us to fight for the American we believe in,’ said Obama.

A former organizer, Obama tried to caution the crowd as well, telling them that ‘for all the rallies and the memes, this will still be a tight race in a closely divided country.’ He warned there would be low points ahead.

And the famed orator, sometimes accused of being professorial, also slipped in an attack on social media.

‘We chase the approval of strangers on our phones…and then we wonder why we feel so alone,’ Obama said.