'I don't take it personally': Barack Obama on Donald Trump's AI ape video
Earlier this year, U.S. President Donald Trump posted a now-deleted video on his Truth Social account in which he depicted former President Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, as apes. While the former President did not stir up a storm at the time, in a recent interview with The New Yorker, he made his feelings clear. He claimed not to have taken the video personally but acknowledged that he was not happy about his wife being dragged into it.
"I don't take it personally," Obama said. "I mean, I'm always offended when my wife and kids get dragged into things, because they didn't choose this. That's a line that even people whose politics I deeply reject, I would expect them to care about. I would never talk about somebody's family in that way." He expressed deeper concerns about President Trump's use of AI to treat war "like a video game" and show "excrement dumped on ordinary citizens."
"I mean, I'm a fair target in the sense of, yeah, you can feel free to pick on me, because I'm your own size," he added. When the video was first posted, it had received criticism from across the political spectrum. However, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt had called the criticism "fake outrage." The video was later taken down from President Trump's social media handles.
According to a Variety report, the former president had spoken about the AI video earlier, claiming that while content like that got a lot of attention, he found that there were people in the country who believed in decorum. "You know, it is true that it gets attention. It's true that it's a distraction. But, you know, as I'm traveling around the country, as you're traveling around the country, you meet people. They still believe in decency, courtesy, and kindness. And there's this sort of clown show that's happening in social media and on television," he had said.
One of President Trump's biggest criticisms of the Obama administration was how it dealt with Iran regarding Tehran's nuclear ambitions. President Trump, in his first term, unilaterally withdrew the U.S. from the Obama-era Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), popularly called the Iran Nuclear Deal. In his second term, the President took a more aggressive stance, launching a military operation against Iran to destroy its nuclear and ballistic missile programs.
Meanwhile, Obama revealed that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had, during his term, sought a similar military operation in the Middle East. Obama, however, did not agree to his proposal. "I think my prognosis was accurate," he said. The former president believes that Netanyahu got what he wanted from the Trump administration. "Whether that's what is ultimately best for the Israeli people, I would question that. Whether I think it's what is good for the United States and America, I would question that. I think there's an ample record of my differences with Mr. Netanyahu," he said.
