Office Trump seeks ‘could just be one of those menial jobs’

CHICAGO – Eight years ago, then-first lady Michelle Obama asked fellow Democrats to take an urban approach to battling Republicans and their presidential nominee, Donald Trump.

“When they go down,” Obama told the crowd at the 2016 Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, “we go up.”

That was then.

On the second night of this year’s Democratic convention on Tuesday, here in her native Windy City, the former first lady turned to a more direct confrontation with the Republican nominee, one that more closely matches Vice President Kamala Harris’ slogan: “When we fight, we win.”

“Her limited and narrow view of the world made her feel threatened by the existence of two hardworking, highly educated, successful people who also happened to be black,” Obama said of Trump’s treatment of her and her husband, former President Barack Obama.

He signaled his hope that Harris would win — and Trump’s repeated use of the word “dirty jobs” chides him. “Who’s going to tell him that the job he’s looking for right now might just be one of those black jobs?” he said.

When he attacked Trump, he accused him of “shrinking” what he considered “unpresidential.”

“Why would we accept this from anyone running for our highest office?” Obama asked.

His trajectory runs with the Democratic Party, which showed a heightened taste for political blood sports last month when party elites managed to pressure President Joe Biden into abandoning his re-election bid after a terrible anti-Trump debate performance. With Biden’s support and no competition, Harris easily rose to the top of the ticket.

Jim Messina, who ran Barack Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign and watched Michelle Obama’s Tuesday speech before she delivered it, said earlier Tuesday that the former first lady would take a new approach to “remind everyone how close we are” at Harris. Trump’s fight.

If elected, Harris will become the nation’s first woman — and the first woman of color — to win a presidential election. Obama, the wife of the nation’s first black president, predicted that Trump would renew the attacks on Harris’ race and gender that have been a feature of their early weeks as direct opponents.

“It’s his same old scam: doubling down on ugly, misogynistic, racist lies as a substitute for real ideas and solutions that actually improve people’s lives,” Obama said.

In an interview earlier on Tuesday, Rep. Rep. Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass., who also grew up in Chicago, said there’s no conflict between taking the high road and fighting hard.

“I think we’re still high,” Pressley said. “However, we’re not afraid to mix it up.”

The Massachusetts congressman said Democrats can provide the public with aspirational policies and fend off attacks at the same time.

“We’re going to respond, but we’re not going to be distracted or derailed,” he said.

In addition to delivering his views to Trump, Obama praised Harris and his running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz. He urged Democrats to redouble their efforts for the ticket in the tough days between now and the Nov. 5 election.

“If we start to feel tired, if we start to feel that horror creeping back in,” Obama said, “we have to pick ourselves up, throw water in our faces and do something!”

Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., said Tuesday that the former first lady is good at motivating Democrats to vote.

“When he tells people to go out and vote,” Klobuchar said, “they listen.”

At the start of his remarks, Obama linked Harris’s quest to make history to her own husband’s 2008 campaign, which made her the embodiment of its “hope and change” slogan. Many Democrats have drawn the same parallel between his first bid for the presidency and the energy Harris felt in the first weeks of the campaign.

“America, hope is making a comeback!” Obama said.

“There’s something wonderfully magical about the air, isn’t there?” he said. “Not just here in this arena, but spreading throughout this land we love – a familiar feeling that’s been buried too deep for too long. You know what I’m talking about? It’s the contagious power of hope!”

Democrats really hope it ends with familiar feelings of victory in November.

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com