Former President Barack Obama has become more vocal regarding his criticism of his successor Donald Trump over the recent months. In his new memoir, “A Promised Land,” Obama recalls the time he mocked Trump during a White House event.
Obama’s memoir also featured the time he had to refute Trump’s assertion that he was not born in the United States back, an assertion that he pursued even during his 2016 campaign. In that same year, when Trump was likely contemplating running for office himself, Obama decided to one-up him during his White House Correspondents’ Dinner remarks. Obama recalled that Trump’s attendance at the event brought the attention away from what the US was planning at the time; the confirmation of the intelligence community that terrorist leader Osama bin Laden was in Pakistan, and the raid that was going to be carried out.
The former president wrote that midway during his remarks, he faced Trump, touching on his birther conspiracy while also poking fun of his Celebrity Apprentice series. “As the audience broke into laughter, I continued in this vein, noting ‘his credentials and breadth of experience’ as host of the Celebrity Apprentice and congratulating him for how he’d handled the fact that ‘at the steakhouse, the men’s cooking team did not impress the judges from Omaha Steaks…these are the kinds of decisions that would keep me up at night. Well handled, sir. Well handled,’” wrote Obama. Obama also recalled that Trump hardly reacted to his remarks and only flashed a “tepid smile.”
Aside from his takedown of Trump who would ultimately succeed him in the presidency, Obama also recalled a time where his wife Michelle Obama broke protocol in their meeting with the Queen. Obama wrote about their meeting of the monarch back in 2009 during the G20 Summit, in which the then-first lady put her arm around the Queen, who appeared not to have minded and even put her arm around Michelle as well.
Michelle had also recalled the moment in her own book, “Becoming,” revealing that she had been speaking to the Queen about their sore feet after they spent the entire day in heels.