Trump targets Obama on Iran, economy
Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump targeted President Obama with a series of attacks at a Wednesday night rally, one day after the president’s final State of the Union address.
Speaking to supporters in Pensacola, Fla., Trump repeatedly needled Obama over Iran’s seizure of two U.S. Navy vessels and 10 U.S. soldiers on Tuesday, tying it to the president’s nuclear deal with Iran.
{mosads}Earlier Wednesday, Iran freed the U.S. sailors who were detained. On the same day, a video was released on Iranian state television showing an American sailor apologizing, calling it a “mistake.”
“I just hated to see that for our country,” Trump said of the apology. “We only got them back because they haven’t gotten their money.”
Trump likened Obama’s issues with Iran to the hostage crisis during Jimmy Carter’s administration starting in 1979.
“This is Jimmy Carter stuff,” he said. “We are now back in the age of Jimmy Carter.”
The billionaire businessman also took direct aim at Secretary of State John Kerry over his response to the Iran seizure. Kerry hailed the U.S. soldiers’ release as being “resolved peacefully and efficiently.”
“We have grossly incompetent leadership, and we’re going to end it,” Trump said. “Kerry shouldn’t be in the position that he’s in.”
Trump also slammed Obama’s portrayal of the economy.
“You know he’s trying to justify the economy. It’s the slowest recovery in our history, and it’s not a recovery,” he said.
And Trump accused the president of not doing enough to help black Americans.
“So you have a president who’s African-American — good, I love that — except less has been done for African-Americans than anybody,” Trump said. “They’re having one of the worst times they’ve ever had.”
Trump cited a poll that had him receiving 25 percent of the African-American vote among Republicans, which the GOP front-runner claims is the “highest number ever in the history of pollsters.”
The rally comes about two weeks before the first ballots are cast in the GOP primary cycle. Trump still holds a commanding lead nationally, but his closest rival, Ted Cruz, narrowly edges him in Iowa, according to RealClearPolitics averages.
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