Barack Obama deplored, Saturday February 14, the « spectacle de clowns » offered by the American political class following the Donald Trump shares racist video depicting him as a monkey. He also harshly criticized the anti-immigration operations, worthy, according to him, of a dictatorship.
Rather rare in the media, the former Democratic president (2009-2017) spoke in a political podcast broadcast on Saturday evening, where he expressed concern about the drift of the United States under his Republican successor.
The left-wing political commentator Brian Tyler Cohen asks him in particular about the “degradation of speech” American politics and cites as an example the video widely denounced as racist broadcast and then deleted on Donald Trump’s account at the beginning of February on the Truth Social network.
The majority of people in the United States “finds this behavior deeply disturbing”replies Mr. Obama, without explicitly mentioning the video or his Republican successor. “There’s a sort of clown show going on on social media and on television and what’s true is that it doesn’t seem to cause any shame among people who previously felt that there had to be a certain decency, a sense of propriety and respect for the office, right? It was lost”develops the former president.
ICE, behavior seen “in dictatorships”
The video, to which he had not yet reacted, represents the faces of Barack Obama, the country’s first black president, and his wife, Michelle Obama, on the bodies of monkeys, sparking numerous criticisms from Democrats and some Republicans.
Donald Trump downplayed criticism and claimed not to have seen the part in question of the video, with the White House ensuring that a member of its staff was responsible for the publication.
The billionaire has a particular animosity against Barack Obama, a very popular figure with Americans. He only calls her « Barack Hussein Obama »using his middle name, and helped spread conspiracy theories surrounding the Democrat’s nationality. During his campaign, the Republican leader increased his violent statements against immigrants and spread false information with racist overtones.
In the same interview, Barack Obama is very vocal regarding the actions of the immigration police (ICE) and the border police in Minneapolis, until the end of their deployment this week. “The misbehavior of federal government officials is deeply concerning and dangerous”he asserts, evoking actions “that we have seen in the past in authoritarian countries and in dictatorships”.
“This is not the America we believe in”
Since December, several thousand federal police officers – often masked – have increased anti-migrant raids and arrests, sparking revolt among many residents of this Democratic bastion which has become the epicenter of hostility to the American president’s repressive migration policy. Two US citizens who tried to oppose ICE, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, were shot and killed there by federal agents last month.
Mr. Obama had already criticized the actions of ICE in January, calling for a “startle” citizens while fundamental values are “attacked”. In the podcast, he welcomes the resistance to these operations: “These are citizens who are saying, in a systematic and organized way: ‘This is not the America we believe in, and we are going to resist, we are going to fight back with the truth, and with cameras, and with peaceful protests.’ This type of heroic and persistent behavior from ordinary people, despite subzero temperatures, should give us hope.”adds Barack Obama.
Tom Homan, President Donald Trump’s right-hand man, announced Thursday the end of the operation carried out in Minnesota. The Democratic opposition continues to call for broad reforms to the way ICE operates, including an end to flying patrols, a ban on agents hiding their faces, and a requirement to obtain a court warrant before arresting a migrant. To this end, Democratic leaders in Congress are refusing to approve the 2026 funding plan for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
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