DOMINANT ANGLE
London sees the Obama-Trump duel as the ultimate test of strength before the midterms that will set the scope of the president's manoeuvring room for the remainder of his term.
Dominant angle identified — does not reflect unanimity of this country’s media
KEY POINTS
- 01
On October 24, Obama campaigned in Cleveland (Ohio) and then in Detroit (Michigan) for Democratic Senate candidates, including Abdul El-Sayed, ten days before the November 3 election.
- 02
Obama stated that the 2015 agreement had prevented Iran from having a nuclear weapon without "firing a missile", the US-Israeli war having started late February.
- 03
Trump held a meeting in Perry (Georgia) and then called Obama a "grossly incompetent President" on Truth Social just before 1 am on Sunday.
ANALYSIS
London, 25 October 2026. For the British press, Barack Obama's entry into the campaign transforms the end of the midterm race into a duel between two presidents. The BBC recalls the stakes: the November 3 election "will decide which party controls Congress for the rest of Trump's term", and thus how easily the president can implement his projects.
On Saturday, October 24, the former president campaigned in Cleveland, Ohio, and then in Detroit, Michigan. According to the BBC, he presented this vote as "our last best chance to slow down at least part of the madness of this administration" and denounced "two years of chaos, cruelty, corruption, and incompetence". He also said he understood voters who had rejected the Democrats in 2024 for reasons of inflation, while estimating that Donald Trump had only himself to blame: "everything is more expensive now".
The Independent focuses on the Iranian aspect. Obama judged that "these are not serious people" and that Americans are paying the price. Recalling that the war, launched with Israel at the end of February, has been going on for nearly eight months, he asserted that Iran did not have nuclear weapons because its 2015 agreement had prevented it: "I didn't have to fire a missile". The newspaper notes that Trump had withdrawn from this text during his first term. It also details the electoral geography: Sherrod Brown against Senator Jon Husted in Ohio, and Abdul El-Sayed against Mike Rogers in Michigan, an election where the black vote in Detroit could count.
The Daily Mail adopts a more spectacular tone. It evokes an "extraordinary war of words", Obama mocking the White House's work and the president's golden tastes. Trump retorted in Georgia, in Perry, boasting of his customs duties, which he claims would bring in billions of investments, and then, just before 1 am, on Truth Social, calling his predecessor a "grossly incompetent president" and recalling the defeats of Hillary Clinton in 2016 and Kamala Harris in 2024. The BBC notes that he boasted of "America's golden age" and voted early in Florida with Melania Trump.
The British tone remains that of an observer of American domestic politics, attentive to the parliamentary balance of power, key candidates, and the cost of living, more than the diplomatic scope of the Iranian dossier.
