If Obama cured cancer Trump would bring it back, says former Clinton staffer

Former aide lashes out after Mr Trump cuts the size of an Obama-era monument

President Donald Trump and former President Barack Obama walk out prior to Obama's departure during the 2017 presidential inauguration (Jack Gruber/Getty Images)

A former Clinton campaign staffer has slammed Donald Trump via the President's favourite medium, tweeting that the former businessman would go to any length to undermine his predecessor.

“If Barack Obama cured cancer Donald Trump would try to bring it back,” tweeted Josh Schwerin, a former press aide to Hillary Clinton and current communications director for Priorities USA.

Mr Schwerin was once described by the Hill as one of the youngest, fastest-rising stars of the Clinton campaign.

His tweet came shortly after Mr Trump slashed the size of the Bears Ears National Monument, a 2,000-square-mile expanse of red rock canyons first declared a monument by Mr Obama. Mr Trump shrank the Utah monument by 85 per cent and cut another monument, the Grand Staircase-Escalante, by half.

The President said his decision would give control of the land back to the people of Utah. Environmentalists, however, claimed it would destroy important archaeological sites and sites of national heritage.

“It is a disgrace that the President wants to undo the nation’s first national monument created to honour Native American cultural heritage,” Rhea Suh, president of the Natural Resources Defence Council, told the New York Times.

Mr Trump has also attempted to roll back several other Obama-era policies, from the former President’s signature healthcare law to his plan to protect childhood immigrants.

Mr Trump announced his decision to roll back the childhood immigration plan, known as DACA, in September. He gave Congress six months to save the programme before he tackled it himself.

Mr Obama responded in a Facebook post, calling the push to save DACA one of “basic decency”.

“This is about whether we are a people who kick hopeful young strivers out of America, or whether we treat them the way we’d want our own kids to be treated,” he wrote. “It’s about who we are as a people – and who we want to be."

Mr Trump has reached out to top Democrats in Congress about forging a deal to save the programme.