Former President Donald Trump made some unexpected positive remarks about his predecessor Barack Obama during an interview Wednesday night.
Trump, who slammed Obama regularly while he was in office said on CNN that “he really is a nice man,” confusing some of his detractors.
Referring to Obama, Trump says: “I like him — he likes me. I think he’s a nice guy, but I think he was very weak on trade … But I like him. I respect him and I am close with his wife.”
The oddly flattering remark appears to catch CNN panelists off-guard; reporter Jamie Gangel was left asking, “Who is that man?”
CNN anchor John King said during its coverage that he was shocked, also recalling an interview with Trump in the past during Obama’s presidency. During the interview Trump had been badgering Obama to release his Hawaiian birth certificate, it was a demand that set these two men apart.
Meanwhile, Obama did not hold back in criticizing Trump during his speech at the DNC. The former president elicited laughs and applause from the audience when he appeared to take a shot at Trump for his apparent obsessive focus on crowd sizes.
“Here’s a 78-year-old billionaire who has not stopped whining about his problems since he rode down his golden escalator nine years ago,” Obama said “It has been a constant stream of gripes and grievances that’s actually been getting worse now that he is afraid of losing to Kamala.”
“There’s the childish nicknames, the crazy conspiracy theories, this weird obsession with crowd sizes.”
Even First Lady Michelle Obama criticized him, especially for Trump’s claims that illegal immigrants are mostly minorities who have taken American jobs — a claim he more broadly asserted has led to the unemployment rate among African Americans being “the highest it’s been in over half a century.”
The influx of migrants “was taking Black jobs,” Trump said during a June debate with President Biden.
Michelle Obama asked the DNC crowd who would want to tell Trump that “the job he’s currently seeking might be one of those Black jobs.”
Republican National Committee (RNC) Chairman Michael Whatley pushed back against the comments of Trump, noting that they are worlds apart from what has been said by Obamas and arguing how far left today’s Democratic Party has moved since Barack Obama.
“Kamala Harris is even more dangerously liberal. As California’s attorney general, Harris defied the Obama administration to allow law enforcement to ignore ICE detainers, and she has driven the party even further left by pushing to end private health insurance, impose the job-killing Green New Scam, and spearhead runaway wasteful spending that has driven inflation.”
