With a Democratic Party leadership vacuum, Obama steps up his criticism of Trump

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.

“But these claims are outrageous enough to merit one. These bizarre allegations are ridiculous and a weak attempt at distraction,” his office said at the time.

To some Democrats, Obama is falling short at a critical time.

“Obama has a singular role in impacting the national debate that he is not in any way maxing out right now, at a time when he is most needed,” said Adam Green, co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee.

Green held up Obama’s signaling of support for California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s effort to match Texas in redrawing its maps mid-decade as the kind of “trickle down” messaging he should take part in to help guide other Democrats.

“He has an unmatched ability to cut through the noise and focus in on the Republicans’ most effective arguments, and then completely debunk them, oftentimes with humor that has been devastating for some Republican candidates on the receiving end during campaign season,” Green said. “But we need him to use that same prowess in this moment to help save the country.”

As president in 2011, Obama showed no reticence in ripping into Trump for promoting the false claim that Obama had been born outside the U.S. At that year’s White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, Obama mercilessly mocked Trump, who was in the audience, for having little experience in making consequential executive decisions and for peddling conspiracy theories.

“Now, I know that he’s taken some flak lately, but no one is happier, no one is prouder to put this birth certificate matter to rest than the Donald,” Obama said. “And that’s because he can finally get back to focusing on the issues that matter — like, did we fake the moon landing? What really happened in Roswell? And where are Biggie and Tupac?”

Trump was visibly irritated during the remarks, and some of his allies say the moment likely factored into his decision to seek the presidency in 2016.

To be sure, Obama has for years served as a Trump critic, particularly when shifting to his familiar role as a closer in critical races on the campaign trail for other Democrats. He’s trotted out punchy one-liners, including at the Democratic National Convention when he memorably needled Trump over an obsession with crowd size, then gestured with his hands in a way that made clear he also was referencing Trump’s manhood.

In August, it was Obama who acted as the party elder and congratulated Texas Democrats in a video address for standing up to Republicans by leaving their state to deny the GOP a quorum before a redistricting vote. Obama has kept up his advocacy for the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, led by his friend and former attorney general Eric Holder.

“President Obama has been sounding the alarm about the threat of gerrymandering for a long time. He was integral to the formation of the NDRC and has made our mission a priority in his post-presidency,” NDRC President John Bisognano said in a statement.

The recent recalibration of Obama’s comments is in part due to the increasing pace and scale of Trump’s actions, two former aides said.

“When I hear not just our current president, but his aides, who have a history of calling political opponents ‘vermin,’ enemies who need to be ‘targeted,’ that speaks to a broader problem that we have right now and something that we’re going to have to grapple with, all of us,” Obama said at a Sept. 17 public appearance before the Jefferson Educational Society, a nonprofit think tank.

Before that, he stood out among Democrats for having called New York City mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani in June, even as many of his peers in the party tiptoed around the democratic socialist’s primary win.

“He picks and chooses his spots wisely. Sometimes you can watch for so long,” a person who frequently speaks to the former president said. “You won’t see him shadowing this president. He didn’t do it the first four years. There was a lot of crazy then. More crazy now. He’s not going to be a president who spends his time throwing shade on another president, but he’ll certainly lean in when he sees injustices.”

While being interviewed onstage in London by British Nigerian historian David Olusoga, Obama last month described Trump’s claims about the link between Tylenol and autism as “violence against the truth.”

“We have the spectacle of my successor in the Oval Office, making broad claims around certain drugs and autism that have been continuously disproved. … That undermines public health, the degree to which that can do harm to women who are pregnant,” he said. “That’s why, by the way, it is important for those who believe in the truth and believe in science to also examine truth when it is inconvenient for us.”

John Anzalone, who acted as a chief pollster to Obama as well as to Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign and former President Joe Biden said Democrats are so far in the desert they’re craving a dominant voice to step forward.

“More Obama,” Anzalone said, “just like ‘more cowbell,’” referencing a famous “Saturday Night Live” skit.

Anzalone argued this moment is unlike others in history, as there is no major oppositional voice breaking through in the same way that then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich could act as a foil to President Bill Clinton when the Republicans were in the minority, for instance.

If “he feels more comfortable ratcheting it up, you’re going to see a lot of people cheering, because we feel that it’s kind of leaderless and rudderless,” Anzalone said of Obama. “There’s an audience for President Obama and people do listen, but we also kind of understand that there’s a certain calculus when you’re a former president about what, how often and how loud you speak, and you’ve got to respect that.”

Anzalone noted, however, that as much as Democrats want to hear from Obama early and often, new leaders need to emerge, and the party as a whole must find a way to break through to voters moving forward.

“It’s good to hear from President Obama but there’s limits to what even he can do fixing the problems of the terrible branding,” Anzalone said. “Individual candidates are going to have to do that. Leaders are going to have to do that.”