WASHINGTON – US President Donald Trump on Thursday posted an election conspiracy video that depicted former president Barack Obama and his wife Michelle as monkeys, drawing condemnation from prominent Democrats.
Near the end of a one-minute-long video posted on Trump’s Truth Social platform, the Obamas are shown with their faces on the bodies of monkeys for about one second.
The song “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” plays in the background when the Obamas appear.
The video repeats false allegations that ballot-counting company Dominion Voting Systems helped steal the 2020 election from Trump.
As of early Friday morning, the video had been liked several thousand times on the president’s social media platform.
The office of California Governor Gavin Newsom, a potential 2028 Democratic presidential candidate and a prominent Trump critic, slammed the post.
“Disgusting behavior by the President. Every single Republican must denounce this. Now,” Newsom’s press office account posted on X.
Ben Rhodes, a former top national security advisor and close confidant to Barack Obama, also condemned the imagery.
“Let it haunt Trump and his racist followers that future Americans will embrace the Obamas as beloved figures while studying him as a stain on our history,” he wrote on X.
Obama is the only Black president in American history and backed Trump’s opponent Kamala Harris on the campaign trail in the 2024 presidential election.
AI IMAGERY
In the first year of his second term in the White House, Trump ramped up his use of hyper-realistic but fabricated visuals on Truth Social and other platforms, often glorifying himself while lampooning his critics.
He has used the provocative posts to rally his conservative base.
Last year, Trump posted a video generated by artificial intelligence showing Barack Obama being arrested in the Oval Office and appearing behind bars in an orange jumpsuit.
Later, he posted an AI clip of House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries — who is Black — wearing a fake mustache and a sombrero.
Jeffries called the image racist.
Since returning to the White House, Trump has drawn criticism from his opponents for leading a crusade against diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs.
One of Trump’s first acts was to terminate all federal government DEI programs, including related policies in the military.
The drive to rid the armed forces of what Trump has derided as “woke” initiatives has also seen the removal from some military academy bookshelves of scores of books that cover the US’s history of discrimination.
US federal anti-discrimination programs were born of the 1960s civil rights struggle, mainly led by Black Americans, for equality and justice after hundreds of years of slavery, whose abolition in 1865 saw other institutional forms of racism enforced.
Former US President Barack Obama has warned of a “political crisis of the sort that we haven’t seen before” in the wake of the killing of Charlie Kirk.
At an event in Pennsylvania on Tuesday, Obama said he did not know Kirk and disagreed with many of his views, but called the killing “horrific and a tragedy”.
He criticised Donald Trump’s remarks towards his political opponents and pointed to previous Republican presidents who, he said, emphasised national unity in moments of high tension, US media report.
In response, the White House called Obama the “architect of modern political division”.
Kirk, 31, died of a single gunshot wound while speaking at Utah Valley University in Orem on 10 September.
On Tuesday, Tyler Robinson, 22, was formally charged with Kirk’s murder, weapons offences and other charges. Prosecutors said they would seek the death penalty.
Utah County Attorney Jeffrey Gray said Robinson had sent text messages which allegedly said he shot Kirk because he “had enough of his hatred”.
Before Robinson was captured, top Trump allies pinned blame for the killing on left-wing activists and rhetoric from Democratic lawmakers and their supporters.
Attorney General Pam Bondi has suggested that the administration will crack down on “hate speech” – although there is no specific US hate speech law. Vice-President JD Vance has led calls to expose people who celebrated or condoned Kirk’s killing or were critical of him after his slaying.
“Call them out, and hell, call their employer,” Vance said as he guest-hosted Kirk’s podcast.
Speaking in Erie, Pennsylvania, Obama said: “I think at moments like this, when tensions are high, then part of the job of the president is to pull people together.”
He urged Americans to “respect other people’s right to say things that we profoundly disagree with”.
Obama praised Utah Governor Spencer Cox, a conservative Republican who he said had shown “that it is possible for us to disagree while abiding by a basic code of how we should engage in public debate”.
He also endorsed the response of Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, a Democrat, whose official residence was firebombed earlier this year in what police called a targeted attack.
The former president contrasted those reactions with comments made by Trump and his allies.
Obama said that he did not use a 2015 mass shooting by a white supremacist at a black church in South Carolina to go after his political enemies, and pointed out that after the 11 September 2001 attacks, President George W Bush “explicitly went out of his way to say, ‘We are not at war against Islam’.”
“And so when I hear not just our current president, but his aides, who have a history of calling political opponents ‘vermin’, enemies who need to be ‘targeted,’ that speaks to a broader problem that we have right now and something that we’re going to have to grapple with, all of us,” Obama told the crowd, according to reports.
In a statement to the BBC, a White House spokesperson rejected the allegations and accused Obama of stoking division while he was president.
“Obama used every opportunity to sow division and pit Americans against each other,” the spokesperson said.
“His division has inspired generations of Democrats to slander their opponents as ‘deplorables,’ or ‘fascists,’ or ‘Nazis.’”
After leaving office, US presidents generally tend to temper criticism of their successors, however in recent months Obama has hit out at Trump’s moves against universities and judges, and has also criticised Democratic party leaders for failing to push back harder against White House policies.
(Reuters) – President Donald Trump’ssuper powers as a public figure have long included the ability to redirect, evade and deny.
But the Republican’s well-worn methods of changing the subject when a tough topic stings politically are not working as his White House fends off persistent unrest from his usually loyal base about convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and his associates.
Trump has scolded reporters, claimed ignorance and offered distractions in an effort to quash questions about Epstein and the suspicions still swirling around the disgraced financier’s case years after his 2019 death in prison. The demand for answers has only grown.
“For a president and an administration that’s very good at controlling a narrative, this is one that’s been harder,” said Republican strategist Erin Maguire, a former Trump campaign spokeswoman.
Unlike political crises that dogged Trump’s first term, including two impeachments and a probe into alleged campaign collusion with Russia, the people propelling the push for more transparency on Epstein have largely been his supporters, not his political foes.
Trump has fed his base with conspiracy theories for years, including the false “birther” claim that former President Barack Obama was not born in the United States. Trump’s advisers fanned conspiracies about Epstein, too, only to declare them moot upon entering office.
That has not gone over well with the president’s right-leaning base, which has long believed the government was covering up Epstein’s ties to the rich and powerful.
“Donald Trump’s been running a Ponzi scheme based on propaganda for the better part of a decade and it’s finally catching up to him,” said Geoff Duncan, a Republican former lieutenant governor of Georgia and Trump critic. “The far right element is just dug in. They’re hell bent on getting this information out.”
The White House has dismissed reporting about Trump’s ties to Epstein as “fake news,” though it has acknowledged his name appears in documents related to the Epstein case. Trump and Epstein were friends for years before falling out.
“The only people who can’t seem to shake this story from their one-track minds are the media and Democrats,” said White House spokesman Harrison Fields.
Before leaving for a trip to Scotland on Friday, the president again urged people to turn their attention elsewhere.
“People should really focus on how well the country is doing,” Trump told reporters, lamenting that scrutiny was not being given to others in Epstein’s orbit. “They don’t talk about them, they talk about me. I have nothing to do with the guy.”
THE ART OF DISTRACTION
Trump in recent weeks has employed a typical diversion playbook.
He chastised a reporter for asking about Epstein in the White House Cabinet Room. He claimed in the Oval Office that he was not paying close attention to the issue. And, with help from Tulsi Gabbard, his director of national intelligence, he explosively accused Obama of treason for how he treated intelligence in 2016 about Russian interference in the U.S. election.
On Thursday Trump took his distraction tour to the Federal Reserve, where he tussled with Chair Jerome Powell about construction costs and pressed for lower interest rates.
That, said Republican strategist Brad Todd, was more effective than focusing on Obama in 2016, which voters had already litigated by putting Trump back in office.
“The Tulsi Gabbard look backward, I think, is not the way for them to pivot,” Todd said, noting that Trump’s trip to the Fed highlighted the issue of economic affordability and taking on a Washington institution. “If I was him I’d go to the Fed every day until rates are cut.”
Democrats have seized on Trump’s efforts to move on, sensing a political weakness for the president and divisions in the Republican Party that they can exploit while their own political stock is low in the wake of last year’s drubbing at the polls.
A Reuters/Ipsos poll this month showed most Americans think Trump’s administration is hiding information about Epstein, creating an opportunity for Democrats to press.
Trump’s supporters and many Democrats are eager to see a release of government files related to Epstein and his case, which the Justice Department initially promised to deliver.
“Yesterday was another example of the Trump folks trying to throw as much stuff against the wall to avoid the Epstein files,” Mark Warner, a Democratic U.S. senator from Virginia, said in a post on X on Thursday about Gabbard’s accusations against Obama.
Trump allies see the administration’s efforts to change topic as a normal part of an all-out-there strategy.
“They are always going at 100 miles an hour. Every department, every cabinet secretary, everybody is out there at full speed blanketing the area with news,” Republican strategist Maguire said.
Trump has weathered tougher periods before, and his conservative base, despite its frustration over the files, is largely pleased with Trump’s work on immigration and the economy. In a July Reuters/Ipsos poll, 56% of Republican respondents favored the administration’s immigration workplace raids, while 24% were opposed and 20% unsure.
Pollster Frank Luntz noted that Trump had faced felony convictions and other criminal charges but still won re-election last year.
“We’ve been in this very same situation several times before and he has escaped every time,” Luntz said.
Donald Trump has accused Barack Obama of “treason”, claiming he plotted to sabotage his first presidency by linking him to alleged Russian election meddling.
“They tried to steal the election,” Trump said at the White House as he claimed Obama had sought to undermine his 2016 victory over Hillary Clinton.
A spokesman for Obama issued a rare retort, calling Trump’s attack “a weak attempt at distraction”.
Trump was referring to a report from US Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard last week that accused Obama and his national security team of a “years-long coup against President Trump” – findings that Democrats have branded false.
Trump’s comments on Tuesday came as he faced questions from reporters about late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, who killed himself in prison in 2019 while awaiting trial.
The president’s administration has been under pressure to release more information about the well-connected convicted paedophile.
“The witch hunt that you should be talking about is they caught President Obama absolutely cold,” Trump told reporters.
“It’s time to go after people, Obama’s been caught directly,” he added.
“He’s guilty. This was treason. This was every word you can think of,” Trump said.
His comments came as he hosted Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos Jr in the Oval Office.
Obama spokesman Patrick Rodenbush said: “Out of respect for the office of the presidency, our office does not normally dignify the constant nonsense and misinformation flowing out of this White House with a response.
“But these claims are outrageous enough to merit one. These bizarre allegations are ridiculous and a weak attempt at distraction.”
Obama and Trump pictured in January at the funeral of former President Jimmy Carter
Friday’s report from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence declassified emails between Obama aides, and argued they had suppressed intelligence findings that Russia had failed in probing attempts to hack US election databases.
A declassified copy of the president’s daily briefing prepared by US security service chiefs for Obama weeks after Trump beat Clinton and dated 8 December 2016 said: “We assess that Russian and criminal actors did not impact recent US election results by conducting malicious cyber activities against election infrastructure.”
But the FBI dissented from the findings it had initially co-authored, and a meeting was held at the White House a day later with top officials, according to the report.
Afterwards an aide to then-Director of National Intelligence James Clapper emailed intelligence chiefs asking them to create a new assessment “per the president’s request” detailing the “tools Moscow used and actions it took to influence the 2016 election”.
Gabbard argued the emails showed evidence of a “treasonous conspiracy” to harm Trump, and she threatened to refer Obama administration officials to the justice department for prosecution.
But Obama’s spokesman said in his statement on Tuesday: “Nothing in the document issued last week undercuts the widely accepted conclusion that Russia worked to influence the 2016 presidential election but did not successfully manipulate any votes.”
The US intelligence community published an assessment in January 2017 concluding that Russia had sought to damage Clinton’s campaign and boost Trump in the vote three months earlier.
US officials found this effort had included Russian bot farms on social media and hacking of Democratic emails, but they ultimately concluded the impact was probably limited and did not actually change the election result.
A 2020 bipartisan report by the Senate intelligence committee also found that Russia had tried to help Trump’s 2016 campaign.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who was a senator at the time, was among the Republicans who co-signed that report.
The first two years of Trump’s first presidency were overshadowed by an investigation from his own justice department into whether he had conspired with Russia to sway the 2016 outcome.
The resulting Mueller report found a lack of evidence that Trump or his campaign co-ordinated with the Kremlin, and no-one was ever charged with such crimes.
A subsequent special counsel inquiry, the Durham report, found the original FBI probe had lacked “analytical rigor” and relied on “raw, unanalysed and uncorroborated intelligence”.
President Donald Trump sought Tuesday to distract from the growing furor over his administration’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein sex scandal by pushing extraordinary claims that Barack Obama tried to mount a coup.
The accusations, delivered in the Oval Office, followed a surprise announcement that Trump’s Department of Justice would question an imprisoned, key former assistant to Epstein.
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said in a statement on X that disgraced British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell, serving a 20-year sentence for her role in Epstein’s alleged pedophile scheme, would be queried for new information.
“No lead is off-limits,” Blanche said.
However, the show of transparency appeared to be part of a concerted effort by the White House and Trump’s allies to quell speculation about the convicted sex offender, who was long rumored to be a pedophile pimp to the powerful and who committed suicide in his prison cell in 2019.
While meeting with the Philippines’ president in the White House, Trump dismissed the Epstein case as “a witch hunt.”
“The witch hunt that you should be talking about is, they caught President Obama, absolutely cold,” he said, launching into a meandering series of unsubstantiated accusations around Obama trying to “steal” the 2016 election, when Trump defeated Hillary Clinton.
“Obama was leading a coup,” Trump said.
An Obama spokesman called the claim “outrageous.”
The coup accusation centers on claims that fly in the face of multiple high-level official probes by the US government. However, it resonates with Trump’s far-right base — in part thanks to blanket coverage by the popular Fox News network.
Trump’s attacks on Obama are “part of a larger strategy of distraction, but they also serve another function: to cast the president as a victim of Democratic treachery,” said Todd Belt, at GW University’s Graduate School of Political Management.
Obama’s spokesman echoed this, saying Trump engaged in a “ridiculous and weak attempt at distraction.”
In another ploy to bury the Epstein controversy, Speaker Mike Johnson, a key Trump Republican loyalist, said he would shut down the House of Representatives until September.
This was to avoid what he called “political games” over attempts by mostly Democrats to force votes on exposing more about the Epstein case.
– Entangled in conspiracy theory –
Epstein was awaiting trial on trafficking charges when he was found hanged in his New York cell.
Authorities declared it a suicide but the death super-charged fears, especially on the far-right, that a “deep state” cover-up is in place to prevent the names of Epstein’s clients from being made known.
Trump’s attempts to stop Epstein speculation clash with the fact that his own supporters are the ones who have most pushed conspiracy theories — and believed that Trump would resolve the mysteries.
They were outraged when Trump’s FBI and Justice Department said on July 7 that the death was confirmed a suicide and that Epstein never blackmailed prominent figures or even had a client list.
Trump tried numerous measures to placate his base, including ordering Attorney General Pam Bondi to try to obtain release of grand jury testimony in Epstein’s aborted New York case.
But the issue flamed up again last week when The Wall Street Journal reported that it had seen a birthday greeting penned in 2003 by Trump to Epstein on his 50th birthday.
The letter reportedly featured a hand-drawn naked woman, with Trump’s signature forming her pubic hair, and reference to their shared “wonderful secret.”
Trump insists he did not send the letter and has filed a lawsuit against the Journal.
Trump has never been accused of wrongdoing but was close friends with Epstein for years and was photographed attending parties with him.
Among the other celebrities with connections to Epstein was Britain’s Prince Andrew, who settled a US civil case in February 2022 brought by Virginia Giuffre, who claimed he sexually assaulted her when she was 17.
Giuffre committed suicide at her home in Australia in April.
Maxwell is the only former Epstein associate who has been convicted. She is appealing her sentence before the Supreme Court.
David Oscar Markus, Maxwell’s lawyer, confirmed on X that he was in discussions about her meeting with government representatives.
“We are grateful to President Trump for his commitment to uncovering the truth in this case,” Markus added.
Former United States President Barack Obama and former First Lady Michelle Obama have publicly addressed the swirling divorce rumours that have followed them for months, putting them to rest with trademark humour and warmth.
The Obamas joined Michelle’s brother Craig Robinson on his podcast, IMO with Michelle Obama and Craig Robinson, on Wednesday.
During the candid family chat, the couple dismissed speculation about their marriage breaking down and offered listeners a peek into their enduring bond.
“She took me back! It was touch and go for a while,” Barack joked, sparking laughter.
Michelle quickly added, “It’s my husband, y’all,” as her brother Craig ribbed them both: “It’s so nice to have you both in the same room together”. To this, Michelle replied, smiling, “I know, because when we aren’t, folks think we’re divorced”.
The light-hearted banter was the first time the Obamas have directly countered the persistent rumours, which intensified earlier this year when Michelle skipped the funeral of former President Jimmy Carter and did not attend President Donald Trump’s second inauguration.
Craig Robinson also recalled how deep the gossip runs — sharing how a stranger once cornered him at an airport asking urgently, “What did he (Barack Obama) do?”
The former President admitted he is usually unaware of the chatter: “These are the kinds of things I just miss. I don’t even know this stuff is going on. Then somebody mentions it and I’m like, what are you talking about?”
Michelle, however, gave a more heartfelt assurance. “There hasn’t been a single moment in our marriage when I thought about giving up on my man. We’ve been through tough times, but we’ve also had a lot of fun and had some amazing adventures. I’ve become a better person because of the man I married,” she added.
Barack and Michelle Obama closed out the Democratic National Convention’s second night by pitching Kamala Harris as an heir to their political legacy. And they derided Donald Trump as a “racist” egomaniac who’d squandered his own presidency, and needed to be kept out of power.
“This convention has always been pretty good to kids with funny names who believe in a country where anything is possible,” the former president said in his closing remarks, an echo to the convention address that launched his national career 20 years ago. Harris’s parents had “crossed oceans because they believed in the promise of America,” evoking the story he’d told Democrats in that same 2004 speech about his Kenyan father coming to a “magical place.”
“I’m fired up!” Obama told the crowd, setting up one of the signature chants of his 2008 and 2012 campaigns..
Appearing on stage not long after his wife, the former president made a tribute to Joe Biden, his one-time vice president, and said “one of my best” decisions as the party’s nominee in 2008 was picking Biden, before hailing Biden’s own achievements as president.
But Obama quickly pivoted to attack Trump, breaking out the Democrats’ favorite new refrain— ”weird” — to say he had a “weird obsession with crowd sizes.” He glanced quickly at his hands, a joke about masculinity and a reminder that Democrats were no longer worried that anti-Trump ridicule might backfire.
“America is ready for a new chapter,” he said, “We are ready for a President Kamala Harris.”
Obama ran through Harris’ record as a prosecutor, adding that she had “pushed me and my administration hard,” after the subprime mortgage crisis to help people who lost their homes in the fallout, later saying that Harris would work to bolster the middle class as president.
On Tim Walz, Obama said “he knows who he is, and he knows what’s important.” Together, he said, they had a vision to ensure all Americans could “get along with each other,” and deliver for everyone.
“Yes she can!” Obama said, sparking an immediate chant in the crowd — another echo to 2008.
“We will build a country that is more secure, more just, more equal, and more free,” he said, leaving to a standing ovation.
Speaking immediately before his speech, Michelle Obama was welcomed by her own standing ovation and rapturous applause from the audience in Chicago, the Obamas’ hometown. Her speech recalled the same spirit of 2008, starting with a declaration that “hope is making a comeback!” But she also gave voice to the collective “mourning” Democrats had been feeling, an oblique nod to how far the party’s fortunes — and optimism — appear to have changed since Biden left the race.
The former first lady also drew many links between her own life and Kamala’s history: “Her story is your story. It’s my story. It’s the story of the vast majority of Americans trying to build a better life.”
“There is no other choice than Kamala Harris and Tim Walz,” she said, painting a picture of Harris as the polar opposite to Donald Trump, while also warning that he could revisit many of the same tactics he used to attack the Obamas in the past. She threw out a quip about how the presidency was a “Black job,” recalling Trump’s terminology, which came up in a contentious interview at the National Association of Black Journalists earlier this summer.
Above all, she urged Democrats to channel their emotions into action.
“Michelle Obama is asking, no I’m telling you all, to do something!” she said at one point.
Ultimately, the major theme of the primetime speeches was drawing a contrast between the future that Harris offered as opposed to Trump, and, aside from a tribute by Obama, brief or no references to Biden by name.
Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff spoke of Harris’ ability to take America forward: “America, in this election, you have to decide who to trust with your family’s future. I trusted Kamala with our family’s future. It was the best decision I ever made.”
Also speaking on stage Tuesday were Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, New Mexico Gov. Michelle Grisham, and Illinois Sen. Tammy Duckworth.
Appearing early in the evening, Schumer set up an immediate contrast between “Trump’s American carnage” and the future Harris might offer. To deliver it, Schumer said, a Democratic majority in the Senate would be crucial: Democrats currently hold a two-seat majority and 34 seats are up for election in November, 23 of which are held by Democrats or Independents.
Sanders, an Independent who caucuses with the Democrats, applauded Harris’ economic agenda, calling it a plan for “an economy that works for all of us,” before repeatedly using the term “radical,” a word often used to attack the left by Republicans, to describe Trump and the GOP’s policies.
It was a big tent at the convention. While Sanders, a socialist and icon among the party’s progressive wing, denounced the “billionaire class,” Pritzker, heir to a massive family fortune, followed that speech by using his wealth to poke fun at Trump.
“Take it from an actual billionaire, Trump is rich in only one thing: stupidity,” the Illinois governor said.
The unprecedented leak to the Guardian of more than 124,000 documents – known as the Uber files – lays bare the ethically questionable practices that fuelled the company’s transformation into one of Silicon Valley’s most famous exports.
The leak spans a five-year period when Uber was run by its co-founder Travis Kalanick, who tried to force the cab-hailing service into cities around the world, even if that meant breaching laws and taxi regulations.
During the fierce global backlash, the data shows how Uber tried to shore up support by discreetly courting prime ministers, presidents, billionaires, oligarchs and media barons.
Leaked messages suggest Uber executives were at the same time under no illusions about the company’s law-breaking, with one executive joking they had become “pirates” and another conceding: “We’re just fucking illegal.”
The cache of files, which span 2013 to 2017, includes more than 83,000 emails, iMessages and WhatsApp messages, including often frank and unvarnished communications between Kalanick and his top team of executives.
In one exchange, Kalanick dismissed concerns from other executives that sending Uber drivers to a protest in Franceput them at risk of violence from angry opponents in the taxi industry. “I think it’s worth it,” he shot back. “Violence guarantee[s] success.”
In a statement, Kalanick’s spokesperson said he “never suggested that Uber should take advantage of violence at the expense of driver safety” and any suggestion he was involved in such activity would be completely false.
The leak also contains texts between Kalanick and Emmanuel Macron, who secretly helped the company in France when he was economy minister, allowing Uber frequent and direct access to him and his staff.
Macron, the French president, appears to have gone to extraordinary lengths to help Uber, even telling the company he had brokered a secret “deal” with its opponents in the French cabinet.
Privately, Uber executives expressed barely disguised disdain for other elected officials who were who were less receptive to the company’s business model.
After the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, who was mayor of Hamburg at the time, pushed back against Uber lobbyists and insisted on paying drivers a minimum wage, an executive told colleagues he was “a real comedian”.
When the then US vice-president, Joe Biden, a supporter of Uber at the time, was late to a meeting with the company at the World Economic Forum at Davos, Kalanick texted a colleague: “I’ve had my people let him know that every minute late he is, is one less minute he will have with me.”
After meeting Kalanick, Biden appears to have amended his prepared speech at Davos to refer to a CEO whose company would give millions of workers “freedom to work as many hours as they wish, manage their own lives as they wish”.
The Guardian led a global investigation into the leaked Uber files, sharing the data with media organisations around the world via the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ). More than 180 journalists at 40 media outlets including Kenya insights, Le Monde, Washington Post and the BBC will in the coming days publish a series of investigative reports about the tech giant.
In a statement responding to the leak, Uber admitted to “mistakes and missteps”, but said it had been transformed since 2017 under the leadership of its current chief executive, Dara Khosrowshahi.
“We have not and will not make excuses for past behaviour that is clearly not in line with our present values,” it said. “Instead, we ask the public to judge us by what we’ve done over the last five years and what we will do in the years to come.”
Kalanick’s spokesperson said Uber’s expansion initiatives were “led by over a hundred leaders in dozens of countries around the world and at all times under the direct oversight and with the full approval of Uber’s robust legal, policy and compliance groups”.
‘Embrace the chaos’
The leaked documents pull back the curtains on the methods Uber used to lay the foundations for its empire. One of the world’s largest work platforms, Uber is now a $43bn (£36bn) company, making approximately 19m journeys a day.
The files cover Uber’s operations across 40 countries during a period in which the company became a global behemoth, bulldozing its cab-hailing service into many of the cities in which it still operates today.
From Moscow to Johannesburg, bankrolled with unprecedented venture capital funding, Uber heavily subsidised journeys, seducing drivers and passengers on to the app with incentives and pricing models that would not be sustainable.
Uber undercut established taxi and cab markets and put pressure on governments to rewrite laws to help pave the way for an app-based, gig-economy model of work that has since proliferated across the world.
In a bid to quell the fierce backlash against the company and win changes to taxi and labour laws, Uber planned to spend an extraordinary $90m in 2016 on lobbying and public relations, one document suggests.
Its strategy often involved going over the heads of city mayors and transport authorities and straight to the seat of power.
In addition to meeting Biden at Davos, Uber executives met face-to-face with Macron, the Irish prime minister, Enda Kenny, the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and George Osborne, the UK’s chancellor at the time. A note from the meeting portrayed Osborne as a “strong advocate”.
In a statement, Osborne said it was the explicit policy of the government at the time to meet with global tech firms and “persuade them to invest in Britain, and create jobs here”.
While the Davos sitdown with Osborne was declared, the data reveals that six UK Tory cabinet ministers had meetings with Uber that were not disclosed. It is unclear if the meetings should have been declared, exposing confusion around how UK lobbying rules are applied.
The documents indicate Uber was adept at finding unofficial routes to power, applying influence through friends or intermediaries, or seeking out encounters with politicians at which aides and officials were not present.
It enlisted the backing of powerful figures in places such as Russia, Italy and Germany by offering them prized financial stakes in the startup and turning them into “strategic investors”.
And in a bid to shape policy debates, it paid prominent academics hundreds of thousands of dollars to produce research that supported the company’s claims about the benefits of its economic model.
Despite a well-financed and dogged lobbying operation, Uber’s efforts had mixed results. In some places Uber succeeded in persuading governments to rewrite laws, with lasting effects. But elsewhere, the company found itself blocked by entrenched taxi industries, outgunned by local cab-hailing rivals or opposed by leftwing politicians who simply refused to budge.
When faced with opposition, Uber sought to turn it to its advantage, seizing upon it to fuel the narrative its technology was disrupting antiquated transport systems, and urging governments to reform their laws.
As Uber launched across India, Kalanick’s top executive in Asia urged managers to focus on driving growth, even when “fires start to burn”. “Know this is a normal part of Uber’s business,” he said. “Embrace the chaos. It means you’re doing something meaningful.”
Kalanick appeared to put that ethos into practice in January 2016, when Uber’s attempts to upend markets in Europe led to angry protests in Belgium, Spain, Italy and France from taxi drivers who feared for their livelihoods.
Amid taxi strikes and riots in Paris, Kalanick ordered French executives to retaliate by encouraging Uber drivers to stage a counter-protest with mass civil disobedience.
Warned that doing so risked putting Uber drivers at risk of attacks from “extreme right thugs” who had infiltrated the taxi protests and were “spoiling for a fight”, Kalanick appeared to urge his team to press ahead regardless. “I think it’s worth it,” he said. “Violence guarantee[s] success. And these guys must be resisted, no? Agreed that right place and time must be thought out.”
The decision to send Uber drivers into potentially volatile protests, despite the risks, was consistent with what one senior former executive told the Guardian was a strategy of “weaponising” drivers, and exploiting violence against them to “keep the controversy burning”.
It was a playbook that, leaked emails suggest, was repeated in Italy, Belgium, Spain, Switzerland and the Netherlands.
When masked men, reported to be angry taxi drivers, turned on Uber drivers with knuckle-dusters and a hammer in Amsterdam in March 2015, Uber staffers sought to turn it to their advantage to win concessions from the Dutch government.
Driver victims were encouraged to file police reports, which were shared with De Telegraaf, the leading Dutch daily newspaper. They “will be published without our fingerprint on the front page tomorrow”, one manager wrote. “We keep the violence narrative going for a few days, before we offer the solution.”
Kalanick’s spokesperson questioned the authenticity of some documents. She said Kalanick “never suggested that Uber should take advantage of violence at the expense of driver safety” and any suggestion that he was involved in such activity would be “completely false”.
Uber’s spokesperson also acknowledged past mistakes in the company’s treatment of drivers but said no one, including Kalanick, wanted violence against Uber drivers. “There is much our former CEO said nearly a decade ago that we would certainly not condone today,” she said. “But one thing we do know and feel strongly about is that no one at Uber has ever been happy about violence against a driver.”
The ‘kill switch’
Uber drivers were undoubtedly the target of vicious assaults and sometimes murders by furious taxi drivers. And the cab-hailing app, in some countries, found itself battling entrenched and monopolised taxi fleets with cosy relationships with city authorities. Uber often characterised its opponents in the regulated taxi markets as operating a “cartel”.
However, privately, Uber executives and staffers appear to have been in little doubt about the often rogue nature of their own operation.
In internal emails, staff referred to Uber’s “other than legal status”, or other forms of active non-compliance with regulations, in countries including Turkey, South Africa, Spain, the Czech Republic, Sweden, France, Germany, and Russia.
One senior executive wrote in an email: “We are not legal in many countries, we should avoid making antagonistic statements.” Commenting on the tactics the company was prepared to deploy to “avoid enforcement”, another executive wrote: “We have officially become pirates.”
Nairi Hourdajian, Uber’s head of global communications, put it even more bluntly in a message to a colleague in 2014, amid efforts to shut the company down in Thailand and India: “Sometimes we have problems because, well, we’re just fucking illegal.” Contacted by the Guardian, Hourdajian declined to comment.
Kalanick’s spokesperson accused reporters of “pressing its false agenda” that he had “directed illegal or improper conduct”.
Uber’s spokesperson said that, when it started, “ridesharing regulations did not exist anywhere in the world” and transport laws were outdated for a smartphone era.
Across the world, police, transport officials and regulatory agencies sought to clamp down on Uber. In some cities, officials downloaded the app and hailed rides so they could crack down on unlicensed taxi journeys, fining Uber drivers and impounding their cars. Uber offices in dozens of countries were repeatedly raided by authorities.
Against this backdrop, Uber developed sophisticated methods to thwart law enforcement. One was known internally at Uber as a “kill switch”. When an Uber office was raided, executives at the company frantically sent out instructions to IT staff to cut off access to the company’s main data systems, preventing authorities from gathering evidence.
The leaked files suggest the technique, signed off by Uber’s lawyers, was deployed at least 12 times during raids in France, the Netherlands, Belgium, India, Hungary and Romania.
Kalanick’s spokesperson said such “kill switch” protocols were common business practice and not designed to obstruct justice. She said the protocols, which did not delete data, were vetted and approved by Uber’s legal department, and the former Uber CEO was never charged in relation to obstruction of justice or a related offence.
Uber’s spokesperson said its kill switch software “should never have been used to thwart legitimate regulatory action” and it had stopped using the system in 2017, when Khosrowshahi replaced Kalanick as CEO.
Another executive the leaked files suggest was involved in kill switch protocols was Pierre-Dimitri Gore-Coty, who ran Uber’s operations in western Europe. He now runs Uber Eats, and sits on the company’s 11-strong executive team.
Gore-Coty said in a statement he regretted “some of the tactics used to get regulatory reform for ridesharing in the early days”. Looking back, he said: “I was young and inexperienced and too often took direction from superiors with questionable ethics.”
Politicians now also face questions about whether they took direction from Uber executives.
When a French police official in 2015 appeared to ban one of Uber’s services in Marseille, Mark MacGann, Uber’s chief lobbyist in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, turned to Uber’s ally in the French cabinet.
“I will look at this personally,” Macron texted back. “At this point, let’s stay calm.”
The coolest retired US President and most powerful man on Earth Barrack Obama has lost his coolness because of the so-called rather self-proclaimed keyboard warriors.
Speaking at an event for the Obama Foundation on Tuesday this week, the former President had an interview with actress and activist Yara Shahidi and spoke to a group of youths in Chicago. During the chat, Obama slammed online cancel culture that most social media users pomposity just because they have a large virtual fanbase.
“This idea of purity and that you’re never compromised and you’re always politically woke and all that stuff you should get over that quickly. The world is messy. There are ambiguities. People who do really good stuff have flaws. People who you are fighting may love their kids, and share certain things with you.” Obama said.
The retired President was responding to a culture that the current US President Donald Trump has set up and not only running the country but also running the government through his Social media accounts.
A move that has since seen the upswing of so-called online activists and revolutionaries. Take, for instance, our very own Canada based Kenyan Dr Miguna Miguna who has branded himself as the Kenyan revolutionary who’s fight the political rot in Kenya by tweet facts and words.
“If I tweet or hashtag about how you didn’t do something right or used the wrong verb, then I can sit back and feel pretty good about myself. Did you see how woke I was, I called you out. Then I’m going to get on my TV and watch my show. That’s not activism. That’s not bringing about change. If all you’re doing is casting stones, you’re probably not going to get that far.” Barack Obama said.
Here’s the full video courtesy of NBC News.
WATCH: President Obama slams online cancel culture: "This idea of purity and you're never compromised and you're always politically woke, and all that stuff — you should get over that quickly." pic.twitter.com/lWnE9Zk7Na
President Obama delivering his speech at the Democratic Convention 2016 in Philadelphia
OBAMA: Thank you!
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Thank you.
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Thank you!
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Thank you.
Thank you so much! Thank you everybody.
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Thank you. Thank you.
OBAMA: Thank you so much, everybody. Thank you! Thank you!
Thank you, everybody.
AUDIENCE: Yes, we can! Yes, we can!
Thank you so much, everybody!
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I love you back!
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Hello, America! Hello, Democrats!
So 12 years ago tonight I addressed this convention for the very first time.
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You met my two little girls, Malia and Sasha, now two amazing young women who just fill me with pride.
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You fell for my brilliant wife and partner, Michelle…
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…who has made me a better father and a better man, who has gone on to inspire our nation as first lady and who somehow hasn’t aged a day.
(LAUGHTER)
I know, the same cannot be said for me. My girls remind me all the time. Wow, you’ve changed so much, daddy.
(LAUGHTER)
OBAMA: And then they try to clean it up. Not bad, just more mature.
And it’s true, I was so young that first time in Boston.
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And look, I’ll admit it, maybe I was a little nervous addressing such a big crowd. But I was filled with faith; faith in America, the generous, bighearted, hopeful country that made my story, that made all of our stories possible.
A lot’s happened over the years. And while this nation has been tested by war and it’s been tested by recession and all manner of challenges, I stand before you again tonight, after almost two terms as your president, to tell you I am even more optimistic about the future of America than ever before.
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How could I not be, after all that we’ve achieved together?
After the worst recession in 80 years, we’ve fought our way back. We’ve seen deficits come down, 401(k)s recover, an auto industry set new records, unemployment reach eight-year lows, and our businesses create 15 million new jobs.
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After a century of trying, we declared that health care in America is not a privilege for a few, it is a right for everybody.
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After decades of talk, we finally began to wean ourselves off foreign oil, we doubled our production of clean energy.
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We brought more of our troops home to their families, and we delivered justice to Osama bin Laden.
(APPLAUSE) Through diplomacy, we shut down Iran’s nuclear weapons program, we opened up a new chapter with the people of Cuba, brought nearly 200 nations together around a climate agreement that could save this planet for our children.
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We put policies in place to help students with loans, protect consumers from fraud, cut veteran homelessness almost in half. And through countless acts of quiet courage, America learned that love has no limits, and marriage equality is now a reality across the land.
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By so many measures, our country is stronger and more prosperous than it was when we started. And through every victory and every setback, I’ve insisted that change is never easy, and never quick; that we wouldn’t meet all of our challenges in one term, or one presidency, or even in one lifetime.
So tonight, I’m here to tell you that yes, we’ve still got more work to do. More work to do for every American still in need of a good job or a raise, paid leave or a decent retirement; for every child who needs a sturdier ladder out of poverty or a world-class education; for everyone who has not yet felt the progress of these past seven-and-a-half years. We need to keep making our streets safer and our criminal justice system fairer; our homeland more secure, and our world more peaceful and sustainable for the next generation.
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We’re not done perfecting our union, or living up to our founding creed that all of us are created equal, all of us are free in the eyes of God.
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And that work involves a big choice this November. I think it’s fair to say, this is not your typical election. It’s not just a choice between parties or policies, the usual debates between left and right. This is a more fundamental choice about who we are as a people, and whether we stay true to this great American experiment in self-government.
Look, we Democrats have always had plenty of differences with the Republican Party, and there’s nothing wrong with that. it’s precisely this contest of ideas that pushes our country forward.
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But what we heard in Cleveland last week wasn’t particularly Republican and it sure wasn’t conservative. What we heard was a deeply pessimistic vision of a country where we turn against each other and turn away from the rest of the world. There were no serious solutions to pressing problems, just the fanning of resentment and blame and anger and hate. And that is not the America I know.
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The America I know is full of courage and optimism and ingenuity. The America I know is decent and generous. Sure, we have real anxieties about paying the bills and protecting our kids, caring for a sick parent. We get frustrated with political gridlock and worry about racial divisions. We are shocked and saddened by the madness of Orlando or Nice. There are pockets of America that never recovered from factory closures, men who took pride in hard work and providing for their families who now feel forgotten, parents who wonder whether their kids will have the same opportunities we had.
All of that is real. We’re challenged to do better, to be better. But as I’ve traveled this country, through all 50 states, as I’ve rejoiced with you and mourned with you, what I have also seen, more than anything, is what is right with America.
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OBAMA: I see people working hard and starting businesses. I see people teaching kids and serving our country. I see engineers inventing stuff, doctors coming up with new cures. I see a younger generation full of energy and new ideas, not constrained by what is, ready to seize what ought to be.
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And most of all, I see Americans of every party, every background, every faith who believe that we are stronger together, black, white, Latino, Asian, Native American, young, old, gay, straight, men, women, folks with disabilities, all pledging allegiance, under the same proud flag, to this big, bold country that we love.
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That’s what I see! That’s the America that I know!
And there is only one candidate in this race who believes in that future, has devoted her life to it; a mother and grandmother who would do anything to help our children thrive, a leader with real plans to break down barriers and blast through glass ceilings and widen the circle of opportunity to every single American, the next president of the United States, Hillary Clinton.
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AUDIENCE: Hillary! Hillary! Hillary!
OBAMA: That’s right. That’s right.
Let me tell you, eight years ago, you may remember Hillary and I were rivals for the Democratic nomination. We battled for a year-and- a-half. Let me tell you, it was tough because Hillary was tough. I was worn out.
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She was doing everything I was doing, but just like Ginger Rogers it was backwards in heels.
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And every time I thought I might have that race won, Hillary just came back stronger.
But after it was all over, I asked Hillary to join my team.
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And she was a little surprised, some of my staff were surprised.
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But ultimately said yes because she knew that what was at stake was bigger than either of us.
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And for four years, for four years, I had a front-row seat to her intelligence, her judgment and her discipline. I came to realize that her unbelievable work ethic wasn’t for praise, it wasn’t for attention, that she was in this for everyone who needs a champion.
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I understood that after all these years, she has never forgotten just who she’s fighting for.
Hillary’s still got the tenacity that she had as a young woman working at the Children’s Defense Fund, going door to door to ultimately make sure kids with disabilities could get a quality education.
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She’s still got the heart she showed as our first lady, working with Congress to help push through a Children’s Health Insurance Program that to this day protects millions of kids.
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She’s still seared with the memory of every American she met who lost loved ones on 9/11, which is why, as a senator from New York, she fought so hard for funding to help first responders, to help the city rebuild; why, as secretary of state, she sat with me in the Situation Room and forcefully argued in favor of the mission that took out bin Laden.
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You know, nothing truly prepares you for the demands of the Oval Office. You can read about it, you can study it. But until you’ve sat at that desk, you don’t know what it’s like to manage a global crisis or send young people to war. But Hillary’s been in the room, she’s been part of those decisions.
She knows what’s at stake in the decisions our government makes, what’s at stake for the working family, for the senior citizen, for the small-business owner, for the soldier, for the veteran. And even in the midst of crisis, she listens to people and she keeps her cool and she treats everybody with respect. And no matter how daunting the odds, no matter how much people try to knock her down, she never, ever quits.
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That’s the Hillary I know. That’s the Hillary I’ve come to admire. And that’s why I can say with confidence there has never been a man or a woman, not me, not Bill, nobody more qualified than Hillary Clinton to serve as president of the United States of America.
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I hope you don’t mind, Bill, but I was just telling the truth, man.
And by the way, in case you were wondering about her judgment, take a look at her choice of running mate. Tim Kaine is as good a man, as humble and as committed a public servant as anybody that I know. I know his family. I love Anne, I love their kids. He will be a great vice president, he will make Hillary a better president, just like my dear friend and brother Joe Biden has made me a better president.
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Now, Hillary has real plans to address the concerns she’s heard from you on the campaign trail. She’s got specific ideas to invest in new jobs, to help workers share in their company’s profits, to help put kids in preschool, and put students through college without taking on a ton of debt. That’s what leaders do.
And then there’s Donald Trump.
(AUDIENCE JEERS)
Don’t boo; vote!
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You know, the Donald is not really a plans guy. He’s not really a facts guy, either.
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He calls himself a business guy, which is true, but I have to say, I know plenty of businessmen and women who’ve achieved remarkable success without leaving a trail of lawsuits and unpaid workers and people feeling like they got cheated.
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Does anyone really believe that a guy who’s spent his 70 years on this Earth showing no regard for working people is suddenly going to be your champion? Your voice? Hey, if so, you should vote for him.
But if you’re someone who’s truly concerned about paying your bills, if you’re really concerned about pocketbook issues and seeing the economy grow and creating more opportunity for everybody, then the choice isn’t even close. If you want someone with a lifelong track record of fighting for higher wages and better benefits and a fairer tax code and a bigger voice for workers and stronger regulations on Wall Street, then you should vote for Hillary Clinton.
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And if you’re rightly concerned about who’s going to keep you and your family safe in a dangerous world, well, the choice is even clearer. Hillary Clinton is respected around the world, not just by leaders, but by the people they serve.
I have to say this. People outside of the United States do not understand what’s going on in this election, they really don’t.
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Because they know Hillary, they’ve seen her work. She’s worked closely with our intelligence teams, our diplomats, our military. And she has the judgment and the experience and the temperament to meet the threat from terrorism. It’s not new to her. Our troops have pounded ISIL without mercy, taking out their leaders, taking back territory. And I know Hillary won’t relent until ISIL is destroyed.
She will finish the job and she’ll do it without resorting to torture or banning entire religions from entering our country. She is fit and she is ready to be the next commander in chief.
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Meanwhile, Donald Trump calls our military a disaster. Apparently, he doesn’t know the men and women who make up the strongest fighting force the world has ever known.
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OBAMA: He suggests America is weak. He must not hear the billions of men and women and children, from the Baltics to Burma, who still look to America to be the light of freedom and dignity and human rights. He cozies up to Putin, praises Saddam Hussein, tells our NATO allies that stood by our side after 9/11 that they have to pay up if they want our protection.
Well, America’s promises do not come with a price tag. We meet our commitments. We bear our burdens. That’s one of the reasons why almost every country on Earth sees America as stronger and more respected today than they did eight years ago when I took office.
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America is already great. America is already strong. And I promise you, our strength, our greatness does not depend on Donald Trump.
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In fact, it doesn’t depend on any one person. And that, in the end, may be the biggest difference in this election, the meaning of our democracy.
Ronald Reagan called America “a shining city on a hill.” Donald Trump calls it “a divided crime scene” that only he can fix. It doesn’t matter to him that illegal immigration and the crime rate are as low as they’ve been in decades, because he’s not actually offering any real solutions to those issues. He’s just offering slogans, and he’s offering fear. He’s betting that if he scares enough people, he might score just enough votes to win this election.
(AUDIENCE JEERS)
And that’s another bet that Donald Trump will lose. And the reason he’ll lose it is because he’s selling the American people short. We are not a fragile people, we’re not a frightful people. Our power doesn’t come from some self-declared savior promising that he alone can restore order as long as we do things his way. We don’t look to be ruled.
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Our power comes from those immortal declarations first put to paper right here in Philadelphia all those years ago. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that we the people can form a more perfect union. That’s who we are. That’s our birthright, the capacity to shape our own destiny.
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That’s what drove patriots to choose revolution over tyranny and our GIs to liberate a continent. It’s what gave women the courage to reach for the ballot and marchers to cross a bridge in Selma and workers to organize and fight for collective bargaining and better wages.
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America has never been about what one person says he’ll do for us. It’s about what can be achieved by us, together, through the hard and slow and sometimes frustrating, but ultimately enduring work of self-government.
And that’s what Hillary Clinton understands. She knows that this is a big, diverse country, she has seen it, she’s traveled, she’s talked to folks and she understands that most issues are rarely black and white. She understands that even when you’re 100 percent right, getting things done requires compromise. That democracy doesn’t work if we constantly demonize each other.
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She knows that for progress to happen, we have to listen to each other and see ourselves in each other, and fight for our principles, but also fight to find common ground, no matter how elusive that may sometimes seem.
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Hillary knows we can work through racial divides in this country when we realize the worry black parents feel when their son leaves the house isn’t so different than what a brave cop’s family feels when he puts on the blue and goes to work, that we can honor police and treat every community fairly. We can do that.
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And she knows that acknowledging problems that have festered for decades isn’t making race relations worse, it’s creating the possibility for people of good will to join and make things better.
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Hillary knows we can insist on a lawful and orderly immigration system while still seeing striving students and their toiling parents as loving families, not criminals or rapists, families that came here for the same reasons our forebears came, to work and to study and to make a better life, in a place where we can talk and worship and love as we please. She knows their dream is quintessentially American, and the American dream is something no wall will ever contain. (APPLAUSE)
These are the things that Hillary knows. It can be frustrating, this business of democracy. Trust me, I know. Hillary knows, too. When the other side refuses to compromise, progress can stall. People are hurt by the inaction. Supporters can grow impatient and worry that you’re not trying hard enough, that you’ve maybe sold out.
But I promise you, when we keep at it, when we change enough minds, when we deliver enough votes, then progress does happen. And if you doubt that, just ask the 20 million more people who have health care today. Just ask the Marine who proudly serves his country without hiding the husband that he loves.
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Democracy works, America, but we gotta want it, not just during an election year, but all the days in between.
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So if you agree that there’s too much inequality in our economy, and too much money in our politics, we all need to be as vocal and as organized and as persistent as Bernie Sanders’ supporters have been during this election.
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We all need to get out and vote for Democrats up and down the ticket, and then hold them accountable until they get the job done.
That’s right, feel the Bern!
If you want more justice in the justice system, then we’ve all got to vote, not just for a president, but for mayors and sheriffs and state’s attorneys and state legislators. That’s where the criminal law is made. And we’ve got to work with police and protesters until laws and practices are changed. That’s how democracy works.
If you want to fight climate change, we’ve got to engage not only young people on college campuses, we’ve got to reach out to the coal miner who’s worried about taking care of his family, the single mom worried about gas prices.
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If you want to protect our kids and our cops from gun violence, we’ve got to get the vast majority of Americans, including gun owners, who agree on things like background checks to be just as vocal and determined as the gun lobby that blocks change through every funeral that we hold. That’s how change happens.
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Look, Hillary’s got her share of critics. She has been caricatured by the right and by some on the left. She has been accused of everything you can imagine and some things that you cannot.
(LAUGHTER)
But she knows that’s what happens when you’re under a microscope for 40 years.
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She knows that sometimes during those 40 years she’s made mistakes, just like I have, just like we all do. That’s what happens when we try. That’s what happens when you’re the kind of citizen Teddy Roosevelt once described, not the timid souls who criticize from the sidelines, but someone “who is actually in the arena, who strives valiantly, who errs, but who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement.”
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Hillary Clinton is that woman in the arena. She’s been there for us, even if we haven’t always noticed.
And if you’re serious about our democracy, you can’t afford to stay home just because she might not align with you on every issue. You’ve got to get in the arena with her, because democracy isn’t a spectator sport. America isn’t about “yes he will.” It’s about “yes we can.” And we’re going to carry Hillary to victory this fall, because that’s what the moment demands.
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OBAMA: Yes, we can! Not yes, she can; not yes, I can; yes, we can!
You know, there’s been a lot of talk in this campaign about what America’s lost, people who tell us that our way of life is being undermined by pernicious changes and dark forces beyond our control. They tell voters there’s a “real America” out there that must be restored.
This isn’t an idea, by the way, that started with Donald Trump. It’s been peddled by politicians for a long time, probably from the start of our republic. And it’s got me thinking about the story I told you 12 years ago tonight about my Kansas grandparents and the things they taught me when I was growing up.
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See, my grandparents, they came from the heartland. Their ancestors began settling there about 200 years ago. I don’t know if they had their birth certificates, but they were there.
(LAUGHTER)
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They were Scotch-Irish mostly, farmers, teachers, ranch hands, pharmacists, oil rig workers. Hardy, small-town folks. Some were Democrats, but a lot of them, maybe even most of them were Republicans, the party of Lincoln. And my grandparents explained that folks in these parts, they didn’t like show-offs, they didn’t admire braggarts or bullies.
They didn’t respect mean-spiritedness or folks who were always looking for shortcuts in life. Instead, they valued traits like honesty and hard work, kindness, courtesy, humility, responsibility; helping each other out. That’s what they believed in. True things, things that last, the things we try to teach our kids.
And what my grandparents understood was that these values weren’t limited to Kansas. They weren’t limited to small towns. These values could travel to Hawaii.
(APPLAUSE) They could travel even the other side of the world, where my mother would end up working to help poor women get a better life trying to apply those values. My grandparents knew these values weren’t reserved for one race; they could be passed down to a half- Kenyan grandson, or a half-Asian granddaughter; in fact, they were the same values Michelle’s parents, the descendants of slaves, taught their own kids living in a bungalow on the south side of Chicago.
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They knew these values were exactly what drew immigrants here, and they believed that the children of those immigrants were just as American as their own, whether they wore a cowboy hat or a yarmulke, a baseball cap or a hijab.
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America has changed over the years. But these values that my grandparents taught me, they haven’t gone anywhere. They’re as strong as ever; still cherished by people of every party, every race, every faith. They live on in each of us. What makes us American, what makes us patriots is what’s in here. That’s what matters.
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And that’s why we can take the food and music and holidays and styles of other countries and blend it into something uniquely our own. That’s why we can attract strivers and entrepreneurs from around the globe to build new factories and create new industries here. That’s why our military can look the way it does, every shade of humanity, forged into common service. That’s why anyone who threatens our values, whether fascists or communists or jihadists or homegrown demagogues, will always fail in the end.
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That is America. That is America. Those bonds of affection, that common creed. We don’t fear the future; we shape it, embrace it, as one people, stronger together than we are on our own.
That’s what Hillary Clinton understands. This fighter, this stateswoman, this mother and grandmother, this public servant, this patriot, that’s the America she’s fighting for.
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And that is why I have confidence, as I leave this stage tonight, that the Democratic Party is in good hands. My time in this office, it hasn’t fixed everything. As much as we’ve done, there’s still so much I want to do. But for all the tough lessons I’ve had to learn, for all the places I’ve fallen short, I’ve told Hillary, and I’ll tell you what’s picked me back up, every single time: It’s been you, the American people.
(APPLAUSE) It’s the letter I keep on my wall from a survivor in Ohio who twice almost lost everything to cancer, but urged me to keep fighting for health care reform, even when the battle seemed lost. Do not quit.
It’s the painting I keep in my private office, a big-eyed, green owl with blue wings, made by a 7-year-old girl who was taken from us in Newtown, given to me by her parents so I wouldn’t forget, a reminder of all the parents who have turned their grief into action.
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It’s the small-business owner in Colorado who cut most of his own salary so he wouldn’t have to lay off any of his workers in the recession because, he said, that wouldn’t have been in the spirit of America.
(APPLAUSE)
It’s the conservative in Texas who said he disagreed with me on everything, but appreciated that, like him, I try to be a good dad.
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It’s the courage of the young soldier from Arizona who nearly died on the battlefield in Afghanistan, but who has learned to speak again and walk again, and earlier this year, stepped through the door of the Oval Office on his own power, to salute and shake my hand.
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It is every American who believed we could change this country for the better, so many of you who’d never been involved in politics, who picked up phones and hit the streets and used the internet in amazing new ways that I didn’t really understand, but made change happen. You are the best organizers on the planet, and I am so proud of all the change that you made possible.
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Time and again, you’ve picked me up. And I hope sometimes I’ve picked you up, too.
(APPLAUSE)
And tonight, I ask you to do for Hillary Clinton what you did for me.
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I ask you to carry her the same way you carried me. Because you’re who I was talking about 12 years ago, when I talked about hope. It’s been you who’ve fueled my dogged faith in our future, even when the odds were great, even when the road is long. Hope in the face of difficulty, hope in the face of uncertainty, the audacity of hope!
America, you have vindicated that hope these past eight years.
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(APPLAUSE)
And now I’m ready to pass the baton and do my part as a private citizen. So this year, in this election, I’m asking you to join me, to reject cynicism and reject fear and to summon what is best in us; to elect Hillary Clinton as the next president of the United States and show the world we still believe in the promise of this great nation.
(APPLAUSE)
Thank you for this incredible journey. Let’s keep it going. God bless you. God bless the United States of America.
