Barack Obama in Philly: Joe Biden Told Me to “Get on the Wentz Wagon”

Barack Obama came to Philadelphia, and there was one thing on his mind: Carson Wentz.

Okay, he had more on his mind than just the Eagles’ new starting quarterback. But Obama opened his speech at Eakins Oval today talking about Wentz, and the Eagles’ upcoming game against the Bears. “Some of you may have seen Joe Biden at the Eagles game,” Obama said. “He told me, ‘Barack, you’ve got to get on the Wentz Wagon!’ We’ve got a new quarterback. We have hope in Philly.… I am a Bears fan. And we play Philly next Monday night! So I’ve got to stick with my team, but I am going to go to Philly and scout out what all the fuss is about.”

Photo | HughE Dillon

Obama was briefly booed for his admission that he was a Bears fan, but otherwise it was all cheers for the president in Philadelphia today. At an event campaigning for Hillary Clinton, Obama talked about how this was possibly his last time speaking in Philadelphia as president. He talked about how he fared here in the 2008 primary, too: “I got whupped here in Pennsylvania,” Obama said. “You made it up to me in November, though.”

He then turned his attention to the election. “This is a choice about the very meaning of America,” Obama said. “What we’ve seen from the other side in this election — this isn’t Abraham Lincoln’s Republican Party. This isn’t even a vision of the freedom that Ronald Reagan talked about. This is a dark, pessimistic vision. … They’re not offering serious solutions. They’re just fanning resentment, and blame, and anger, and hate.”

But it was when he finally turned his attention to Donald Trump (who was also booed) that the president really got going:

“He’s not really a plans guy, a fact guy. He calls himself a business guy, but America’s got a lot of businessmen and women who succeeded without hiding their tax returns, leaving behind a trail of lawsuits, workers who didn’t get paid, people feeling like they got cheated.

“I keep reading this analysis that says Trump’s got support for working folks. Really? This is the guy who want to be the champion of working people? The guy who spent 70 years of this earth showing no concern for working people?!

“He’s spent most of his life tying to stay as far away from working people as he could. Huh. He wasn’t going to let you on his golf course. He wasn’t going to let you buy in his condo. And now all of a sudden this guy’s going to be your champion?”

A handful of protesters were outside the event: Some were protesting the Dakota Pipeline, while another man heckled supporters as they were leaving the event with a “Hillary for Hospice” sign. That man, Parkwood’s Howard Caplan, said he was a Bernie Sanders supporter but was now backing Trump in the general election.