Obama has tense face-off with audience member

One heckler got more than he expected in a recent event.

As the crowd roared, Obama said to the heckler: ‘We like each other, we don’t have to shout each other down — it’s not a good way to do business. You wouldn’t do that in the workplace. We wouldn’t just interrupt people having a conversation. It’s not how we do things.’

The heckler was eventually escorted out of the building by security as Obama continued his pitch.

Obama made his return to the campaign trail at a Friday night rally outside of Atlanta, where he ridiculed Republicans for staying loyal to former President Donald Trump and mocked their choice of a Georgia Senate candidate, Herschel Walker. 

‘Just about every Republican politician seems obsessed with two things – owning the libs – and getting Donald Trump’s approval,’ the former president said at the Gateway Center Arena in College Park, Georgia. ‘It’s not complicated. And, at least to me, it’s not very inspiring.’ 

Obama’s task was to bolster the campaigns of Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock, who’s in a tight race against Walker, and gubernatorial hopeful Stacey Abrams, who’s trailing incumbent Republican Gov. Brian Kemp. 

Put down your phone and give TikTok a rest and vote,’ he told the crowd.  

He took particular delight in going after Walker, a former Georgia football and NFL player, who has thus far survived a series of scandals, including allegations of paying for ex-girlfriends’ abortions. 

Obama pointed out that for Walker there is ‘very little evidence that he has taken any interest, bothered to learn anything about, or displayed any kind of inclination toward public service, or volunteer work or helping people in any way.’ 

‘Seems to me he’s a celebrity who wants to be a politician,’ Obama remarked. ‘And we’ve seen how that goes. We’ve seen that before,’ he said, laughing.

While clearly a reference to Trump, Obama was also labeled a ‘celebrity’ by his 2008 White House rival, the late Sen. John McCain. 

‘There are a lot of young people here,’ Obama said. ‘Some of you may not remember, but Herschel Walker was a heck of a football player.’ 

‘But here’s the question, does that make him the best person to represent you in the U.S. Senate? Does that make him equipped to weigh in on the critical decisions about our economy and our foreign policy and our future?’ 

Obama then asked the audience to do a ‘thought experiment’ with him. 

‘Let’s say you’re at the airport and you see Mr. Walker and you say, “Hey, there’s Herschel Walker, Heisman winner, let’s have him fly the plane!”‘ Obama said. ‘You probably wouldn’t say that. You’d probably want to know, “Does he know how to fly an airplane?”‘ 

With Biden’s approval ratings in the low 40s, Democrats hope Obama’s emergence in the closing weeks of the campaign boosts the party’s slate in a tough national environment. 

For Obama personally, the campaign blitz is an opportunity to do something he was unable to do in two midterms during his presidency: help Democrats succeed in national midterms when they already hold the White House. 

For his party, it´s an opportunity to leverage Obama´s rebound in popularity since his last midterm defeats in 2014. Their hope is that the former president can sell arguments that Biden, his former vice president, has struggled to land.