It appears former President Barack Obama isn’t quite done trading jabs with Donald Trump, especially when it comes to crowd sizes and election results. During a recent Q&A event in Connecticut on Tuesday night, Obama, 63, made a rare but pointed public appearance where he subtly, but unmistakably, took aim at his successor.
While he never mentioned Donald Trump by name, the context of his remarks made the target crystal clear. “In 2020, one person won the election, and it wasn’t the guy complaining about it,” Obama told attendees, according to Connecticut Public.
“And that’s just a fact, just like [the fact that] my inauguration had more people. I say that, by the way, not because I don’t care, but facts are important.” The dig about inauguration crowds is a familiar one, referencing Trump’s long-disputed claims about the size of his 2017 inauguration audience compared to Obama’s 2009 turnout.
The remark quickly reignited tensions between the two camps. By Wednesday, Trump’s team had fired back. In a statement to the Daily Beast, Liz Huston, Assistant Press Secretary, responded sharply: “Barack Obama should spend less time whining about his total lack of relevance and more time figuring out why the Democratic Party’s approval ratings are at historic lows.”
Obama’s remarks also touched on broader concerns about the state of American democracy, particularly the rise of political disinformation. While sharing the stage with historian Heather Cox Richardson, he warned of a dangerous trend in modern politics.
“You just have to flood the zone with so much untruth, constantly, that at some point, people don’t believe anything,” Obama said. “So it doesn’t matter if a candidate… is constantly—just hypothetically—saying untrue things. Or if an elected president claims that he won when he lost, and that the system was rigged. But then, when he wins, that it isn’t rigged—because he won.”
Obama’s comments come amid renewed calls from Democrats for prominent figures to speak out against political misinformation ahead of the 2024 election. His supporters welcomed the statements, but not everyone was impressed.
“Seriously? With everything going on, this is all he has to say?” one user posted on Facebook. “Now crowd sizes matter to the left,” another commented, while others labeled the remarks “out of touch” and blamed Obama’s presidency for Trump’s rise. Whether critics or admirers, the response proved one thing—Obama still knows how to command a crowd, whether in person or online.