Obama says he may return to criticizing Donald Trump after leaving office

After George W. Bush turned the White House over to President Obama, he learned to paint and mostly stayed quiet on his successor. Obama has urged America and foreign leaders to give his successor, President-elect Donald Trump, a chance to outline a vision and grow into the job, but he also is making clear that he won't stay silent if Trump goes too far. If a Trump policy or action "goes to core questions about our values and our ideals, and if I think that it's necessary or helpful for me to defend those ideals, then I'll examine it when it comes," Obama said at the end of an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit on Sunday. In private, he's reportedly more direct.

"I'm going to be constrained in what I do with all of you until I am again a private citizen," he said last week to a meeting of Organizing for Action, the group that maintains his political movement, according to The New York Times. "But that's not so far off." Obama had planned to retire from partisan politics if Hillary Clinton had been elected, devoting his efforts to redistricting reform, confronting systemic racism, and promoting technology to improve society. But in his remarks to the liberal activists, Obama reportedly urged them to quickly land on a plan to oppose Trump, adding, "You're going to see me early next year, and we're going to be in a position where we can start cooking up all kinds of great stuff to do."

Obama was a strident critic of Trump when he was on the campaign trail for Clinton, and resuming his critique after leaving office carries some risk. Currently, Obama's approval rating is 56 percent, according to Gallup; Trump's favorability rating is 42 percent, Gallup says, which is an improvement from 34 percent before he won election but much lower than Obama (68 percent), George W. Bush (59 percent), and Bill Clinton (58 percent) right after they were elected. Pew found that only 30 percent of voters give Trump an A or B grade, the lowest mark since at least 1988 (Clinton, was graded an A or B by 43 percent of voters, the first time the losing candidate outscored the winner).

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up