Barack Obama didn’t need to name-drop Donald Trump on Thursday to take a swing at how conservatives treated his time in the Oval Office compared to the current president.
“It’s unimaginable that the same parties that are silent now would have tolerated behavior like that from me or a whole bunch of my predecessors,” said Obama as he reportedly drew applause in a speech at Hamilton College in Clinton, New York.
The former president — in a speech that attendees were barred from recording — was referring to the Trump administration’s attacks against law firms as well as funding threats toward universities, which have been fueled by claims that schools aren’t protecting Jewish students from antisemitism.
The speech was detailed by CNN Politics writer/editor David Wright in a thread on X, formerly Twitter.
Obama, per Wright’s rundown, continued, “Imagine if I had said to law firms that were representing parties that were upset with policies my administration had initiated that you will not be allowed into government buildings. We will punish you economically for dissenting from the [ACA] or the Iran Deal.”
He added, “Imagine if I had done any of this. Imagine I had pulled Fox News’ credentials from the White House press corps.”
Obama made an apparent nod to a long-cited double standard he was held to compared to Trump, notably seen in the former president’s tan suit controversy back in 2014.
Thus far in his second term, Trump has threatened foreign countries with tariffs, which led to stocks taking a plunge on Thursday, and has booted outlets, including HuffPost, from the White House press pool to his liking.
Obama went on to claim that he doesn’t think Trump’s latest round of tariffs will fare well for the U.S. before noting that he’s “more deeply concerned” about a federal government “that threatens universities if they don’t give up students who are exercising their right to free speech.”
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He said, “The idea that a White House can say to law firms, if you represent parties that we don’t like, we’re going to pull all our business or bar you from representing people effectively ... that kind of behavior is contrary to the basic compact we have as Americans.”
You can check out more reporting on Obama’s remarks here.