A fact check: Despite former President Barack Obama’s statements onstage at a rally in support of Kamala Harris in Detroit, Michigan, he was neither wearing a sweater, nor did it have remnants of vomit on it, let alone from pasta prepared by his mother. It is as yet unknown whether his palms were sweaty, knees weak, or arms heavy. This is a developing story.
We can confirm that Obama did showcase his rapping skills from behind the podium of the city’s Huntington Place convention center, where after being introduced by rapper Eminem, he took the stage to the strains of the musician’s 2002 Grammy-winning hit “Lose Yourself.”
“I have done a lot of rallies, so I don’t usually get nervous,” Obama told the cheering crowd. “But I was feeling some kind of way following Eminem. I notice my palms are sweaty, knees weak, arms are heavy, vomit on my sweater already, mom’s spaghetti. I’m nervous but on the surface I look calm and ready to drop bombs but I keep on.”
After supplying his own beat and making like he was going to keep going with the impromptu karaoke session, he joked, “I thought Eminem was going to be performing, I was going to jump out. Love me some Eminem.”
Obama wore a white button-down shirt with no tie and his sleeves rolled up to pump up the enthusiastic gathering. Again: No sweater, no evidence of regurgitation.
In his roughly 45 minutes onstage, Obama urged the crowd to vote for Harris, and got in direct digs at her Republican opponent, Donald Trump, including discussion of Trump’s bizarre Pennsylvania town hall event earlier this month, when after multiple members of the crowd required medical attention, Trump first asked whether “anybody else would like to faint” and then declared “who the hell wants to hear questions, right?” The former president remained onstage for 39 minutes, swaying along to background music.
Obama used the incident as an opportunity to drop a diss track of his own on Trump.
“If your grandpa was acting like this, you’d be worried,” Obama said of the episode on Tuesday. “This is somebody who wants unchecked power. We do not need to see what an older, loonier Donald Trump looks like with no guardrails. America’s ready to turn the page.”
Michigan is a swing state, and Detroit reliably leans Democrat. The Democrats, then, are relying on high turnout from the city and its surrounds to bolster their hopes of winning the state.
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer was also at the rally Tuesday night, and reacted to Trump’s recent characterization of Detroit as a “developing city.”
At the Detroit Economic Club earlier this month, Trump said, “The whole country will be like—you want to know the truth? It’ll be like Detroit. Our whole country will end up being like Detroit if she’s your president.”
And what’s so wrong with that, Whitmer seemed to ask.
“I know you all saw what he said about this beautiful city. He called Detroit a failure and a mess, proving he ain’t firing on all cylinders,” Whitmer said in her speaking slot ahead of Obama. “He doesn’t have a clue what the hell he was talking about. And you know what I think? He ought to keep Detroit out of his mouth.”
