Former President Barack Obama slammed Donald Trump during a podcast interview for being a joke in New York where Trump lived before he was elected president in 2016.
In an interview on the ‘Smartless‘ podcast alongside former President Bill Clinton and President Joe Biden, Obama was asked if he was surprised by how quickly the “protection and passion for democracy was diluted” during Trump’s four years in office.
“I have been surprised that there haven’t been guardrails inside the Republican Party,” Obama said.
“Trump didn’t surprise me,” he continued. “I mean, he comes from New York. There’s nobody in New York who does business with him or lend him money. He’s not considered a serious guy here.”
“So I was surprised he was elected, but I wasn’t surprised in terms of his behavior. I did expect, and I suspect Bill and Joe, you’d agree with this, that there would be some folks in the Republican Party who would say, no, you can’t go that far. You can’t start praising Putin and saying that his intelligence is better than the US intelligence agencies,” Obama said.
Obama, Biden and Clinton recorded the podcast on March 28 in New York City.
Trump is currently on trial in New York for allegedly falsifying business records to pay hush money to adult film star Stormy Daniels before the 2016 presidential election, in what prosecutors are describing as an election interference scheme.
Earlier this year, Judge Arthur Engoron ordered Trump to pay nearly $355 million in penalties after he was found guilty of falsely inflating and deflating the value of his assets to receive lower taxes and better insurance coverage.
Trump was a New York resident until 2019 when he moved to Florida.
