Campaigning for Hillary Clinton hours after the FBI announced it was reopening a probe of her emails, President Obama urged voters in Florida Friday not to allow the election “to slip away.”
“We cannot kick back and think that we’ve got this thing won,” Mr. Obama told thousands of supporters in Orlando. “Folks are in a volatile mood. The media stories go up and down. There’s a lot of noise. Sometimes it’s hard for folks to sort out what’s right and what’s wrong, what’s true and what’s false.”
Mr. Obama also pleaded with voters to elect Democrats to the Senate and House, saying Republicans are promising to obstruct Mrs. Clinton’s presidency even before it starts. He said the GOP has “given up” on presidential nominee Donald Trump and is focused on holding on to Congress.
“It’s not enough just to elect her, and then have a Republican Congress that’s already talking about not being willing to cooperate with her on anything,” Mr. Obama said. “All we’re going to see is more gridlock and more obstruction and more threats to shut down the government, and more threats to wreck the economy. They’ve given up on their own nominee but they’re promising more unprecedented dysfunction in Washington.”
He added of the GOP, “They didn’t work with me when I took office, even when we were in the middle of an unprecedented crisis. They sure will not work with Hillary now.”
The president never mentioned the FBI announcement of the renewed email probe, but he urged voters not to get complacent about Mrs. Clinton leading in national polls.
“I understand right now the polls show Hillary having a lead,” he said at the University of Central Florida. “Sometimes when you get a lead, whether it’s in sports or politics, you start feeling good. You start celebrating too early. Next thing you know you look up, and you let it slip away. I want you hustling all the way until the polls close on Nov. 8.”
The president also blasted incumbent Republican Sen. Marco Rubio for supporting GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump.
“You can’t with a straight face say you respect women and then support somebody who brags about assaulting women,” Mr. Obama said, referring to a tape of Mr. Trump talking about groping women.
• Dave Boyer can be reached at dboyer@washingtontimes.com.
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