Barack Obama warns Joe Biden supporters not to be 'complacent or smug' because Donald Trump 'won once' as he encourages them to keep protesting during Zoom fundraiser that raised record $7.6 million

President Barack Obama gave Joe Biden's supporters a pep talk Tuesday night on a Zoom fundraiser that brought in $7.6million for Biden's presidential campaign. 

Obama cheered on the recent political activism that broke out after George Floyd's death, but told the approximately 120,000 supporters on the call that pushing President Trump out of the White House was no easy task. 

'We can't be complacent or smug or sense that somehow it's so obvious that this president hasn't done a good job because, look, he won once,' Obama warned.  

The ex-president also spoke of the realities of a pared-down 2020 campaign season, due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. 

'Unlike our current president we recognize that we have a public health crisis going on,' Obama said. 'It means that we have to show restraint and how we structure campaigns has to be different and take that into account.' 

Trump was holding his second rally-like event in three days as Obama was speaking, in front of a mostly mask-free audience of students in Phoenix.  

Obama said the Biden campaign would be listening to public health experts who have warned against congregating in crowds and have advised Americans to wear masks. 

'Poor Dr. Fauci, who has to testify and then see his advice flouted by the person who he's working for,' Obama said, several hours after Fauci finished up a full day testifying on Capitol Hill. 'We've got to pay attention to what the public health experts say when it comes to this campaign season.' 

TOGETHER AGAIN: President Barack Obama (center) joined Joe Biden (left), the presumptive Democratic nominee, on a fundraising call Tuesday night. Obama praised activists but implored them to do more because President Trump already 'won once'  

+3

'Unlike our current president we recognize that we have a public health crisis going on,' President Obama said, adding that he felt bad for 'Poor Dr. Fauci' who recommends that people avoid crowds and wear masks, only to be 'flouted by the person who he's working for'

+3

At the same time President Obama was speaking about how the Democrats would have to 'show restraint' when it came to campaigning due to the coronavirus pandemic, President Trump was speaking to a mostly mask-less audience in Phoenix 

More generally, Obama talked about how he thought Biden would be inheriting a worse situation than him. 

Obama took office in the months following the financial crash of 2008.   

'As challenging as those times were and as much of a slog as it was to yank the economy out of the economic crisis that it was in ... there was still a sense of a shared American idea that we could build on,' Obama said.

Obama said the difference now was that the Trump White House, Republicans in Congress and a 'media structure that supports them' have 'gone at the very foundations of who we are and who we should be.' 

'That suggests facts don't matter, science doesn't matter. That suggests that a deadly disease is fake news,' Obama said. 

'That sees the Justice Department as simply an extension and arm of the personal concerns of the president,' he continued. 

'That actively promotes division. And considers some people in this country more real as Americans than others,' Obama went on.    

Obama characterized Biden as the perfect healer-in-chief. 

'There’s nobody I trust more to be able to heal this country and get back on track than my dear friend Joe Biden,' the ex-president said.

+3

Last Monday, Joe Biden announced his first virtual fundraiser with former President Obama, who he called his 'friend and former boss.' The Biden campaign said Tuesday in the hours leading up to the joint appearance that the event raised $4 million   

Obama didn't mention Republicans by name, though he said of his 'predecessor,' George W. Bush, that while they 'disagreed on a whole host of issues' they 'still had a basic regard for the rule of law and the importance of our institutions.' 

In recent years, Bush and former first lady Michelle Obama have struck a friendship, despite Barack Obama criticizing his record during the 2008 campaign.  

As for his successor, Obama mostly described what he thought Trump did wrong. 

He told those listening that he was optimistic, calling the recent wave of protests frequented by young people the 'Great Awakening,'  

'Who are saying not only are they fed up with the shambolic, disorganized, mean-spirited approach to governance that we've seen over the last couple of years, but more than that are eager to take on some of the core challenges that have been facing this country for centuries,' Obama said.  

He pushed the young activists to keep going. 

'I appreciate you all being on this call but, man, this is serious business,' the former president said. 'Whatever you've done so far is not enough. And I hold myself and Michelle and my kids to the same standard,' he offered. 

He called it a 'unique chance' to turn awareness of inequalities in society into legislative and institutional change. 

'And those moments don't come too often,' Obama said.   

Around 175,000 supporters took the Biden campaign up on its offer to 'chip in any amount' to watch the former president and vice president campaign together for the first time over Zoom. The campaign later said 120,000 dialed in.  

Biden spent most of the fundraiser letting Obama speak. In the tweet advertising the 'grassroots' fundraiser he had referred to the 44th president as his 'friend and former boss.' 

As they got off the call, Obama told the ex-veep that he loved him. 

'Love you Joe,' Obama said. 

'Love you too, man. You're a good friend,' Biden replied. 

The Obama fundraiser marked the biggest haul the campaign had received for one event. 

Biden's campaign previously had announced an $80.8 million haul in May.

It marked the first time he outraised President Trump, who brought in $74 million last month.  

The Obama event was also announced on the heels of a successful pairing of Biden and Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a former Democratic rival who endorsed Biden in April, the same week Obama and Sen. Bernie Sanders also joined the ex-vice president's effort. 

The Warren event brought in $6 million from 629 people. It was meant to attract higher-dollar donors. 

The Biden campaign previously brought in $1 million from around 36,000 donors partnering Biden with Pete Buttigieg, another ex-2020 hopeful. 

Biden's been holding a handful of virtual fundraiser each week, while voyaging out of his Delaware home about once a week as he slowly heads back on the campaign trail as coronavirus-related lockdowns are lifted. 

Biden has talked to community leaders in Wilmington and Dover, delivered a speech in Philadelphia and traveled to Houston to meet family members of the late George Floyd. 

Trump's campaign and allies have mocked the ex-vice president for hiding in his Delaware home's basement. 

'Listen, Joe Biden has been working out of his basement and campaigning from his basement for three months,' the Trump campaign's Communications Director Tim Murtaugh said Monday on CNN. 

On Tuesday, the Trump campaign labeled Biden's fundraiser with Obama 'secretive' because only a limited number of reporters, feeding to a larger pool, were allowed to dial in. 

A livestream of the video feed of Obama and Biden wasn't made available to press, which has been typical of how the Biden campaign has handled media access to fundraisers.  

'Biden has become so bad that his handlers can’t even trust him to share a screen with President Obama,' the Trump campaign scoffed.  

Trump's meetings with donors are generally closed to all reporters.  

But Trump has witnessed the perils of campaigning in the COVID-19 era as he got a lower than expected turnout to his Saturday night rally in Tulsa, Arizona.   

On Tuesday, the president chalked it up to his supporters preferring to watch the rally speech at home. 

'The Tulsa rallies, despite all of the horrible, ominous warnings that you people put out over a period of two weeks, the crowd was wonderful. It was a great - they were warriors. It was a great crowd,' Trump told reporters as he departed the White House for Arizona.

'But many of them stayed home and watch television and what happened is Fox, on Saturday night, had the biggest rating in the history of Fox Television,' Trump said.