Obama warns Trump's tweets are distracting from 'the truly destructive actions' of his appointees

In a blistering rebuke of President Trump and his relationship with the truth, former President Barack Obama on Wednesday said if Joe Biden is in the White House, Americans will be able to "go about your lives knowing that the president is not going to retweet conspiracy theories about secret cabals running the world or that Navy SEALs didn't actually kill [Osama] bin Laden."

Trump recently retweeted a baseless QAnon conspiracy theory claiming the terrorist is still alive, and during a rally in Philadelphia, Obama said the president is doing outrageous things in order to "distract all of us from the truly destructive actions that his appointees are doing all across the government, actions that affect your lives." He used the Environmental Protection Agency as an example, saying it is "supposed to protect our air and water, and right now is run by an energy lobbyist that gives polluters free rein to dump unlimited poison into our air and water."

The polls may show Biden leading Trump in several key states, but "we can't be complacent," Obama said. Trump was trailing at this time in 2016, too, and "a bunch of folks stayed home and got lazy and complacent. Not this time. Not in this election." This is the "most important election of our lifetimes," Obama declared. "What we do these next 13 days will matter for decades to come." He urged Democrats to vote up and down the ticket, saying "we will not only elect Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, we will also leave no doubt about what this country stands for. We will not leave any doubt about who we are as a people and the values and ideals that we embrace."

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.