O'Malley: 'To hell with Trump's American nightmare'

Donald Trump "makes his followers fearful of tomorrow" and "feeds off of a deep-seated and dangerous anger," former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley declared Wednesday at the Democratic National Convention.

"I say to hell with Trump’s American nightmare," O'Malley said. "We believe in the American Dream."


Praising the Democratic ticket of Hillary Clinton and Tim Kaine as "as tough as they come," the former presidential candidate contrasted that with Trump, whose "anger," he continued, "never fed a hungry child; anger never protected a family’s home or sent a kid to college. Anger never built a great republic."

O'Malley hit Trump with a number of grievances during his address, particularly with the Republican nominee's previous assertion that "wages are too high." (Trump has since said he would support a federal increase.)

As far as what is too high, O'Malley observed, college tuition, the cost of childcare and “the number of American children who live in poverty and go to bed hungry every night, that’s too high."

"Donald Trump’s opinion of himself — way, way too high," O'Malley quipped.

On climate change, O'Malley noted Trump's past claim that "the concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese."

"I’ll tell you what: If the Chinese were really capable of designing some kind of diabolical farce to hurt America, they wouldn’t invent global warming," he said. "They’d invent Donald Trump."

Trump, O'Malley said, "has been a bully his whole life."

"But here’s what I learned on playgrounds in Catholic school: all bullies are cowards in disguise," O'Malley said, before resurrecting one of his most colorful campaign lines against the boastful businessman. "But unlike that immigrant-bashing carnival barker Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton actually knows the enduring symbol of America is not a barbed wire fence," he remarked. "It is the Statue of Liberty."