Former President Barack Obama has stepped up his criticisms of the Trump administration in recent weeks, weighing in more forcefully and frequently than he did at the start of the president’s second term.
It is an intensification that Democrats welcome at a moment when they lack party leadership, even as some say his trademark caution is still getting the better of him.
In the last three weeks, Obama called President Donald Trump’s news conference linking Tylenol and autism “violence against the truth,” and he attacked the administration in the wake of comedian Jimmy Kimmel’s initial late-night ouster for taking “cancel culture” to a “new and dangerous level.” After Charlie Kirk’s killing, Obama aggressively called out Trump’s rhetoric, saying the president was further dividing the country. And before the government shutdown, he clapped at Republicans, saying they would “rather shut down the government than help millions of Americans afford health care.”
Obama’s headline-grabbing comments come after private conversations over the summer with allies about whether he should speak out more and how he should approach high-stakes White House actions as they unfold, according to two people familiar with the discussions. According to one of the sources, the former president recognizes the gravity of a moment when Trump is seen as stretching the limits of the Constitution, and one former aide said he is cognizant that there is a dearth of party leadership.
It’s unclear, however, whether Obama will sustain this pace.
A former Obama White House official with knowledge of his team’s thinking said before Obama sat for a series of paid speaking events in recent weeks, his team mulled how to best take advantage of the appearances. At the same time, a flurry of high-profile events transpired, including the Kirk shooting, Kimmel being pulled off the air and the indictment of former FBI Director James Comey.
“I’m aware there are discussions of ‘Should we be out there more? How are we calibrating?’ Of course they’re asking that, that’s responsible because he’s trying to be thoughtful. It’s fair to say they’re constantly asking themselves, ‘How do we meet this moment?’” the former official said.
But that person noted that some of Obama’s newsmaking moments emerged from public appearances that had been on the books for months.
“To take that shot is intentional,” the person said of Obama’s rhetoric against Trump. “Don’t get me wrong — that is definitely a choice. But I can’t overstate the extent to which the realities of the opportunities you have on the calendar inputs into your strategy. They reinforce each other.”
Obama’s role in the country’s current political discourse has been a topic of conversation — and at times a source of deep frustration — among Democrats since he left office more than eight years ago. While it’s still not enough for some, his cadence in recent weeks is a sharp change from Trump’s first term, when he subscribed to post-presidential norms of not talking about a successor.
But this time is arguably unlike any other. Eight months into Trump’s presidency, the Democratic Party remains leaderless, creating a void that Obama is best suited to fill.
“The party itself is in the wilderness and I think the last person who can speak with credibility on behalf of Democrats is Obama,” said Ami Copeland, a Democratic strategist who previously served as Obama’s deputy national finance director. “People don’t want to hear from Biden about anything right now. [Bill] Clinton is still kind of tainted, I think. And the last person who really led a successful campaign that moves the big-tent party is him.”
Copeland characterized Obama’s recent public statements as likely coming from a sense of duty.
“He still feels a responsibility to not just the party, but more importantly, to the country. I don’t even see that as a partisan comment. That is just [an] ‘I care about the country and babies’ comment,” Copeland said, referencing Obama’s retort on Tylenol.
In response to a request for comment on Obama’s recent remarks, White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said, “Barack Hussein Obama is the architect of modern political division in America — famously demeaning millions of patriotic Americans who opposed his liberal agenda as ‘bitter’ for ‘cling[ing] to guns or religion.’”
“If he cares about unity in America, he would tell his own party to stop their destructive behavior,” she added.
Even as many Democrats point to Obama’s impact, they acknowledge they need to look beyond him if they’re ever to move forward with a new generation of leadership.
But for now, they point to Obama’s popularity as giving his words more weight. A Gallup poll in February showed Obama had the highest approval rating among presidents who were still living. A Marquette University Law School poll released last week showed Trump with net minus-15% favorability while Obama enjoyed net 17% favorability.
Obama’s discussions on whether to weigh in more publicly on developments out of the Trump administration have included exploring ideas of how, when and in what format, according to the people familiar with the discussions. They characterized the approach as a work in progress, meaning he’s made his views on Trump clear over the past decade, but as the administration rolls out new actions, he’s sought to ensure his approach has an impact.
This summer, the former president was called out for clinging to a reserved posture.
In June, a headline in The Atlantic asked, “Where is Barack Obama?” and thrashed the former president, casting him as all but sitting on his heels as democracy burned.
“No matter how brazen Trump becomes, the most effective communicator in the Democratic Party continues to opt for minimal communication,” the piece stated. “His ‘audacity of hope’ presidency has given way to the fierce lethargy of semi-retirement.”
Less than two weeks later, Obama made news at a public event where he warned that the United States was “dangerously close” to slipping into an autocracy. At the time, news pieces found it notable that Obama appeared publicly to speak against Trump at all. But even at that event, no audio or video was allowed, and Obama was cautious and circumspect. He did not mention Trump by name.
“Democracy is not self-executing. It requires people, judges, people in the Justice Department, and people throughout the government who take an oath to uphold the Constitution,” Obama said in those remarks. “It requires them to take that oath seriously. When that isn’t happening, we start drifting into something that is not consistent with American democracy. It is consistent with autocracies.”
Aides have long said they want to avoid a “dilution” factor with the 44th president, so that he’s not so frequently weighing in on issues that his words lose their impact.
In July, Obama’s office did issue a rebuke of Trump after the president accused him of committing “treason” and rigging the 2016 and 2020 elections.
