Former President Obama called out President Trump for his “nativist, racist, sexist” rhetoric in private remarks to donors on virtual fundraising calls for presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, The New York Times reports.
According to the Times, Obama has been holding private Zoom calls with big-dollar donors, on which he has hosted conversations with figures like Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker and LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman.
In his call with Pritzker, Obama reportedly railed against Trump and said his core supporters filter “out any contradictory information.”
“It’s just glued to Fox News and Breitbart and Limbaugh and just this conservative echo chamber — and so, they’re going to turn out to vote,” Obama said, according to the Times, which cites sources familiar with the calls and notes from the conversations.
“What he has unleashed and what he continues to try to tap into is the fears and anger and resentment of people who, in some cases, really are having a tough time and have seen their prospects, or communities where they left, declining. And Trump tries to tap into that and redirect in nativist, racist, sexist ways,” he continued.
In his virtual conversation with Hoffman, Obama also reportedly accused Trump of pushing “anti-Asian sentiment” in past comments he has made about the COVID-19 pandemic. Trump has faced criticism in recent months for his characterization of the disease, which he has repeatedly referred to as the “kung flu” — a phrase many critics have said is racist.
“That still shocks and pisses me off,” Obama said, according to the Times.
“We already saw this guy win once. After he bragged about physically assaulting women — and that didn’t seem to matter. So, enough said. Let’s get to work,” he also reportedly said.
The Hill has reached out to representatives for Obama for comment.
The report comes several weeks after Obama knocked the president’s handling of the ongoing pandemic, which the latest Johns Hopkins University data shows has killed more than 150,000 people in the U.S. alone over the course of several months, and called his administration’s response an “absolute chaotic disaster” on a private call with his former aides.