Obama campaigns for Clinton, says Putin is "like Saddam"

Obama campaigns for Clinton, says Putin is "like Saddam"

“When the interviewer asks him (Trump), ‘why do you support this guy 'Putin'?’ He says, ‘He is a strong guy. Look, he’s got an 82 percent poll rating.’ Well, yes, Saddam Hussein had a 90 percent poll rating. If you control the media and you’ve taken away everybody's civil liberties, and you jail dissidents, that's what happens,” Obama said.

RT is reporting that he was referring to Trump's recent appearance on Larry King's talk show, hosted by the Russian broadcaster.

Obama then went on to say that Trump "loves this guy (Putin)."

“Now their nominee is out there praising a guy, saying he’s a strong leader, because he invades smaller countries, jails his opponents, controls the press, and drives his economy into a recession.”

RT said that while this is not the first time that the name of Vladimir Putin has been brought up in the U.S. presidential campaign, "this time the U.S. president used this 'argument' while openly campaigning for Clinton against Trump."

Defense & Foreign Affairs editor Gregory Copley is quoted as describing the situation as "really ludicrous and bordering on the ridiculous."

"In my 50-odd years covering the U.S. government, I have never seen this level of partisanship within the administration where a sitting president actually regards the opposition party as the enemy of the state. The Democrats are blaming the messenger to revert the attention from the message," he told RT.

This journalist thinks that "neither Obama nor Clinton are interested in unifying the country, but in winning and engaging in what modern democracy seems to have become - the tyranny of the marginal majority over the marginal minority.”

“When you think about the number of times that the Clinton campaign has brought up President Putin and the alleged Russian hacking of Hillary Clinton’s service, it makes you wonder just how desperate they are. President Obama has lost literally all prestige in an international community…with the loss of prestige he has become desperate," Copley concluded.