Obama describes Trump as “completely uninhibited.”

7 min readNov 15, 2020

Former US President Barack Obama is settling accounts with his successor Donald Trump: In a book, he accuses him of putting his family’s safety at risk by lying about his birthplace. Besides, Obama accuses the Republican Party of having made itself accomplices of Donald Trump and his lies.

In the first volume of his memoir, entitled “A Promised Land,” the first black US president describes how Trump has been spreading the conspiracy theory since 2011 that Obama was not born in the US and, therefore, not entitled to be US president. SPIEGEL will publish excerpts from the book, published on Tuesday, in its upcoming issue.

“At first I ignored this nonsense,” writes Obama. But he quickly discovered how Trump’s lie spread in the media and found an echo in the Republican Party. Who believed in the lie was “Birther” (from English “birth” = birth).

Obama says there was an “emotional, almost instinctive reaction” to his presidency that had “nothing to do with political or ideological contradictions.” “It was as if my presence in the White House had awakened a deeply rooted fear as if my opponents believed that the natural order of things was dissolving.”

Donald Trump also understood this: “He promised millions of Americans who were frightened because of a black man in the White House an elixir to treat their ethnic fears.”

Direct line from Trump to Republicans

For Obama, the problem lies not only with Trump but also with the Republican Party: The mood from the final phase of the election campaign of former Vice-Presidential candidate Sarah Palin and the Tea Party has increasingly “spilled over from the edge of the Republican Party to its core.”

Obama draws a direct line from Trump to the Republicans: “It was clear that Trump didn’t think twice about the consequences of spreading conspiracy theories that he almost certainly knew were wrong, as long as he achieved his goals, “writes Obama.

In this respect, Trump hardly differed from the two Republican parliamentary group leaders John Boehner and Mitch McConnell: The truth of what the two said were completely indifferent to them when they attacked Obama. “Trump’s political style differed from theirs only in that Trump was completely uninhibited. He instinctively understood what moved the conservative electorate, and he presented it in an unadulterated form.”

Obama also reports on his wife Michelle’s concerns. “She had given me to understand that Trump and ‘Birtherism’ worried her not about my political future, but the security of our family,” writes Obama. “‘People think it’s all just a game,’ she said. ‘They don’t think about the fact that there are thousands of armed men out there who believe every word they are told.’”

The rise of Donald Trump should continue to shape the US despite his defeat by the Democrat Joe Biden. Leading Republicans support Trump’s attempts to legally challenge the election result — although there is no evidence to date to support his fraud allegations. A renewed candidacy of the elected president in four years does not seem to be ruled out. Until then, however, Obama’s former deputy will determine the country’s fate: In January, the newly elected President Biden will be sworn in as head of state and can return to the White House.

Obama describes Trump as “completely uninhibited.”

Direct line from Trump to Republicans

Written by Arakibdit