Vice President JD Vance leapt at the opportunity to join Donald Trump in insulting former President Barack Obama on Tuesday during an appearance on Fox News.
Appearing on The Story With Martha MacCallum on Tuesday afternoon, Vance was asked about the possibility of regime change in Iran. MacCallum noted that exiled Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi had previously said that Trump “doesn’t want to be another Obama,” by making a deal that allows Iran to continue with its ballistic missile program.
“The president will do what he thinks is in the best interest of the American people,” Vance told MacCallum. “He has shown very clearly that he is not Barack Obama. He takes a much different approach to America’s national security and he’s much more willing to act aggressively to defend America’s national security,” he added.
The dig at Trump’s predecessor came just hours after the president went out of his way to insult Obama himself in the middle of a post honoring the late Rev. Jesse Jackson, who died on Tuesday at the age of 84.
“The Reverend Jesse Jackson is Dead at 84. I knew him well, long before becoming President. He was a good man, with lots of personality, grit, and ‘street smarts,‘” the 79-year-old wrote on Truth Social.
“Jesse was a force of nature like few others before him,” Trump continued, adding, “He had much to do with the Election, without acknowledgment or credit, of Barack Hussein Obama, a man who Jesse could not stand.”
The swipes at Obama come just weeks after Trump faced a severe backlash for posting a racist video to Truth Social that depicted Barack and Michelle Obama as apes.
While Democrats were quick to criticize the video, including California Governor Gavin Newsom’s press office, the video was also enough to cause MAGA Senator Tim Scott to break with Trump.
“Praying it was fake because it’s the most racist thing I’ve seen out of this White House,” the South Carolina senator wrote on X. “The president should remove it.” Republican Sen. Roger Wicker also criticized the video.
Rather than apologize, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt initially claimed that the video was a reference to The Lion King–a movie that does not feature apes.
“Please stop the fake outrage and report on something today that actually matters to the American public,” Leavitt said.
When that didn’t work, Trump sought to blame a staffer for the video’s publication, with CNN reporting that a senior White House official had said, “A White House staffer erroneously made the post. It has been taken down.”
The president then claimed that, although he had reviewed the video before its publication on Truth Social, he paid attention only to the part that focused on voter fraud.
“I looked at the beginning of it. It was fine,” Trump told reporters. “It was a very strong post in terms of voter fraud.”
Obama responded to the video, as well as the general devolution of political discourse in the U.S., in an interview with Brian Tyler Cohen over the weekend.
Calling the video Trump posted “a distraction,” Obama criticized the outrage cycle as a tactic designed to grab people’s attention, adding that he believes “the majority of the American people find this behavior deeply troubling.”
“It is true that it gets attention,” he told Cohen. “It’s true that it’s a distraction, but you know, as you’re traveling around the country, you meet people, they still believe in decency, courtesy, kindness.”
“There’s this sort of clown show that’s happening in social media and on television,” he added, noting that a basic sense of decorum had been eroded, as well as “a sense of propriety and respect for the office.”
He quickly pivoted to a hopeful message, however, praising the community response to Trump’s immigration crackdown in Minnesota that led to the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti.
“We should take a moment to appreciate the extraordinary outpouring of organizing, community building, decency,” among people, he said, noting that protestors were sending a message that said, “This is not the America we believe in.”
