Barack Obama returned to the spotlight Tuesday night with a speech at the DNC that sent the internet into a frenzy as many believed he had made a crude joke about Donald Trump.
The 44th president delivered a speech that seemed more like a childish attack on Trump than a speech in support of Kamala Harris, when he laughed at his successor’s “weird obsession with crowd size.”
Obama began moving his hands from large to small, then looked down and watched what he was doing as the partisan, liberal crowd roared in approval.
As one person on social media noted, “This isn’t the ‘When they go low, we go high’ party anymore.”
Conservative commentator Todd Starnes called Obama “weird” and “creepy” for influencing “the size of President Trump’s genitals.”
Barack Obama returned to the spotlight Tuesday night with a speech at the DNC that set the internet ablaze when many believed he had made a crude joke about Donald Trump
Another X account mocked Michelle Obama’s famous “when they go low, we go high” line by arguing that eight years later the Democratic platform was “Trump has a small dick.”
“They act weird at those conventions,” added another user, frustrated with both parties.
Conservative influencer Benny Johnson responded by mocking Obama’s party’s invitation to Lil Jon, saying, “Democrats need to bring rappers to their events to fill the seats.”
“We all knew what that hand gesture meant @BarackObama,” posted former CNN host Don Lemon, who took the comment in a more suggestive way.
Others praised Obama for the crude joke, with one person even saying that “Barack Obama’s joke about the size of the crowd may be the biggest insult in political history.”
Obama apparently had not yet heard a rare gesture of kindness from Trump ahead of his predecessor’s speech at the Democratic Party convention on Tuesday.
Trump was asked what he thought of the 44th president and old foe. While Trump criticized Obama’s trade policies, he spoke highly of his character.
“I like him, I think he’s a nice man, but he was very, very weak on trade. If you look at what happened to our country, it was a disaster.”
Trump called Obama’s dealings with China and Japan a major flaw in his presidency, but he also had compliments for the former president and his wife Michelle, who also delivered a speech on Tuesday.
“I like him. I respect him and I respect his wife,” Trump told CNN.
Before Trump made positive comments about Obama on Saturday, he had been feuding with the former president for years.
Trump, who was still a private citizen, spent years promoting the “birther” conspiracy that Obama was not born in the US and therefore could not serve as president.
After becoming a politician, Trump claimed that Obama was the “founder of ISIS” and “one of the worst presidents in the history of the United States.”
Despite a troubled 2016 election season, Obama wrote Trump an Inauguration Day letter and left it in a drawer in the Oval Office. Trump said at the time that it was “beautiful.”
Obama dusted off his message of “hope” and “change” to breathe new life into the Democratic convention, revisiting some of the jibes he’s been making about Donald Trump for years.
The first black president introduced another candidate with a “funny name,” then compared Donald Trump to an annoying neighbor and promoted Kamala Harris as his new successor.
At a convention where a series of speeches attacked Trump for his policies and videos alternated between ridiculing him and calling him a serious threat, Obama weighed in. “We don’t need four more years of bluster and chaos. We’ve seen that movie — and we all know the sequel is usually worse,” Obama said to applause.
The former president put a new spin on his 2008 campaign slogan, giving a stamp of approval to Harris and her candidate.
Barack and Michelle Obama headlined the second night of the Democratic convention in Chicago, which also featured Vermont socialist Bernie Sanders.
Trump is preparing to debate Kamala Harris for the first time on September 10 in Philadelphia.
