Bill Clinton’s Obama-friendly mask slipped again during a speech to a small group of supporters on Friday, and he harshly critiqued the current president’s record.
While Clinton was addressing backers at his wife’s campaign office in Washington, Pennsylvania, the former president explained why his presidency was different.
“If you saw that (Commander in Chief forum), she’s the only person that has the standing and the understanding to keep us safe and give us the space we need to grow our way out of the long trough we’ve been in since the financial crash, and if we do it, we can take the rest of the world with us,” Clinton said.
“You know, you didn’t have a lot of this craziness when I was president because people felt good.
“After 8 years after the crash, 80% of the American people after inflation haven’t gotten a pay raise,” Clinton said. “Almost all the gains have gone to the top 1%.
“You can’t run a country that way,” the former president said.
It wasn’t Clinton’s first critique of Obama’s America.
During a rally in Spokane, Washington in March, Clinton seemed to tear down Obama to boost his wife.
“Literally from the time I met her till we talked yesterday, she is the best change maker I have ever known.
“She always finds a way to make something good happen, to make people feel empowered, to buy people into the process, to make democracy work the way the framer intended for it to work,” Clinton said.
“Now, if you don’t believe that we can all grow together again, if you don’t believe that we’re ever going to grow again, if you believe it’s more important to relitigate the past, there may be many reasons that you don’t want to support her.
“But if you believe we can all rise together, if you believe we’ve finally come to the point where we can put the awful legacy of the last eight years behind us and the 7 years before that when we were practicing trickle-down economics and no regulation in Washington, which is what caused the crash, then you should vote for her,” Clinton said.
In April, Clinton took a veiled shot at Obama, as well.
“She’s better qualified to be president for this time than I was when I ran (in 1992),” Clinton said.
“Because of the trouble around the world. It’s not just a matter of going out — as you were so kind to give me credit for — and seizing an opportunity.
“The world’s in tough shape,” Clinton said.
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