Barack Obama returned to the limelight Tuesday night with a speech at the DNC that set the internet on fire when many believed he made a crude joke about Donald Trump.
The 44th president was running what sounded less like a speech in favor of Kamala Harris and more like a puerile roast of Trump when he laughed at his successor’s ‘weird obsession with crowd sizes’.
Obama started to motion with his hands from large to small, before looking down and catching what he was doing as the partisan liberal crowd roared with approval.
As one commenter on social media noted: ‘This ain’t the ‘When they go low, we go high’ party anymore’.
Conservative commentator Todd Starnes called Obama ‘weird’ and ‘creepy’ for having weight in ‘on the size of President Trump’s private parts.
Another X account mocked Michelle Obama’s famous quote of ‘when they go low, we go high’ by saying that eight years later, the Democrat platform was ‘Trump has a small d***’.
‘They’re having a weirdo off at these conventions,’ added another user, frustrated with both parties.
Conservative influencer Benny Johnson responded by mocking Obama’s party bringing in Lil Jon, saying ‘Democrats have to bring rappers to their events to fill seats’.
‘We all knew what that hand gesture meant @BarackObama,’ posted former CNN host Don Lemon, taking the remark in a more suggestive way.
Others praised Obama for the crude joke, with one person saying that ‘Barack Obama’s crowd size joke might be the biggest burn in political history’.
Obama apparently hadn’t heard a rare moment of kindness from Trump ahead of his predecessor’s speech at the Democrat National Convention Tuesday.
Trump was asked his thoughts on the 44th president and longtime nemesis – but while slamming Obama’s policies on trade, Trump spoke highly of his character.
‘I like him, I think he’s a nice gentleman but he was very, very weak on trade if you take a look at what happened to our country trade-wise it was a disaster.’
Trump cited Obama’s dealings with China and Japan as a huge flaw in his presidency, but had some praise for the former president and his wife Michelle, also speaking Tuesday.
‘I happen to like him. I respect him and I respect his wife,’ Trump told CNN.
Before Trump’s positive comments aimed at Obama on Saturday, he spent several years in a feud with the former president.
Trump, while still a private citizen, spent years promoting the ‘birther’ conspiracy that Obama was not born in the U.S. – 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 rocky election season in 2016, Obama still wrote Trump an Inauguration Day letter and left it in a drawer in the Oval Office. Trump said at the time it was ‘beautiful.’
Obama dusted off his ‘hope’ and ‘change’ message to fire up the Democratic convention and rolled out some of the mockery he has deployed against Donald Trump going back years.
The first black president pitched another candidate with a ‘funny name’ – before comparing Donald Trump to an annoying neighbor while promoting Kamala Harris as a new successor.
In a convention where a string of speeches have gone after Trump for his policies and videos have alternated between ridiculing him and calling him a grave threat, Obama weighed in. ‘We don’t need four more years of bluster and chaos. We’ve seen that movie – and we all know that the sequel is usually worse,’ Obama said to applause.
The former president gave a twist to his 2008 campaign slogan and a seal of approval for Harris and her prospect.
Barack and Michelle Obama headlined night two of the Democrat 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.