Trump leaves viewers guessing after trailing off on why Obama was 'the worst'

Former President Barack Obama has quipped that he lives rent-free in President Donald Trump's mind, and the 80-year-old was in no mood to prove him wrong on Monday when he found himself in an awkward moment concerning Obama during a Fox News interview. When asked for a response to Iran's closure of the Strait of Hormuz, Trump slammed past presidents like Bill Clinton, George Bush, and Obama for "letting Iran go," singling out Obama as the "worst" among them.

Trump then alleged that Obama was soft on Iran because he was "on their side," stopping short of explaining why. "Obama was the worst of all because Obama actually went to their side. Obama... Because he's... Well, let's not say it. Let's leave that for another time. He was terrible," he said on Fox & Friends, adding that Iran had been surveilling past presidents for decades.

The President also accused Obama of giving Iran $1.7 billion in cash by putting it in satchels on an airplane and bringing them to Iran. "Do you know what that is? Did you ever see a million dollars in cash? This is 1.7 billion. It took up an entire Boeing 757, and they flew it to Iran," he contended. The trailed-off remark left plenty of people online speculating about what Trump was trying to say, and many guessed that it was probably something racist, given Trump's long history of stoking birther conspiracies about Obama,

Trump floated the theory in 2011, when he was considering a run for the presidency, according to ABC News. In a calculated move, he began appearing on talk shows, calling on Obama to release his birth certificate and questioning whether he was born in the United States. "I want him to show his birth certificate. There is something on that birth certificate that he doesn't like," he was quoted as saying.

This led to Obama releasing his birth certificate, which revealed his birthplace as Hawaii, as opposed to Kenya, his father's birthplace. The move was unprecedented, as per the BBC, which noted that Obama wanted to quell the rumors once and for all and focus on "better stuff." It did not help, as many continued to believe in fringe conspiracies, with one notable moment standing out when the late John McCain snatched a microphone away to correct a supporter who had called Obama an "Arab."

Over the years, Trump has indulged in seemingly racist rhetoric on numerous occasions, with the most recent instance being in July, when he posted an image of Obama and his wife, Michelle Obama, waving before boarding Air Force One that had been spray-painted with graffiti—months after a February post depicting the couple as primates. The use of graffiti is supposedly meant to convey crime and urban decay, and has historically been used in racist messaging against Black people, PBS News explained.