“A weak man who threatens people who criticize him is not fit to be our commander-in-chief. Vote for Kamala Harris today!” said former First Lady Michelle Obama in an Election Day X post targeted at former President Donald Trump.
Obama and Trump, the GOP candidate for president, have been trading barbs in the final days before the 2024 election. Earlier this year, before Vice President Kamala Harris was chosen as the replacement for current President Joe Biden as the Democratic candidate, a poll found that Obama had a chance of beating Trump if she was the candidate.
During an Oct. 26 campaign event in Kalamazoo, Mich., for Harris, Obama said Trump has an “amoral character” and that he displayed “gross incompetence,” according to The Guardian.
“Michelle hit me. I was so nice to her, out of respect,” said Trump during a Monday campaign event in North Carolina. He then added that he asked his advisors “am I allowed to hit her now?”
As the crowd laughed, Trump said those advisors told him to “take it easy.” At the event, Trump also called Obama’s husband, former President Barack Obama, “the great divider.” Barack, the first Black president in the U.S., won the popular vote for White House twice.
“Trump had already appeared to threaten Michelle Obama at a previous rally, noting ominously that she’d made ‘a big mistake’ by criticizing him, but his latest outburst is an escalation in his language and appears to deliberately lean into the ambiguity of the word ‘hit,’” said The Huffington Post.
Last week, Trump also faced backlash after suggesting that former Republican Wyoming representative Liz Cheney, daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, should have guns pointed at her. He was criticizing what he called her “war hawk” tendencies.
“Let’s put her with a rifle standing there with nine barrels shooting at her, okay?” Trump said of Cheney, who has announced she would support Harris over Trump. “Let’s see how she feels about it. You know, when the guns are trained on her face.”
Head to Audacy Election Central for the latest 2024 election results.