Former President Barack Obama is forcefully condemning both the aggressive actions of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in Minnesota and a racist social media post from Donald Trump that depicted Obama and former First Lady Michelle Obama as apes in a jungle.
In a wide-ranging interview released Saturday with liberal podcaster Brian Tyler Cohen, Obama criticized what he described as “rogue behavior” by ICE agents during a sweeping immigration enforcement surge in Minneapolis and St. Paul. At the same time, he addressed the broader erosion of political norms, referencing the racist video shared — and later deleted — from Trump’s social media account.
The video, which portrayed the Obamas as monkeys, drew immediate backlash. Trump has refused to apologize, blaming a staffer for posting the content and claiming he did not see the offensive final frames. Despite that explanation, he has not publicly expressed regret.
Obama did not mention Trump by name when discussing the video but denounced what he called a political “clown show” playing out on social media and television.
“There’s this sort of clown show that’s happening in social media and on television,” Obama said. “People who used to feel like you had to have some sort of decorum and a sense of propriety and respect” now appear to show “no shame about this.”
He added that while such behavior garners attention, “the majority of the American people find this behavior deeply troubling,” calling it a distraction from more substantive issues facing the country.
The former president’s remarks came as he sharply criticized federal immigration operations in Minnesota, where roughly 3,000 federal agents were deployed during a months-long enforcement surge. Numerous videos circulated online showed confrontations between agents and members of the public, including scenes of tear gas being used on crowds.
“It is important for us to recognize the unprecedented nature of what ICE was doing in Minneapolis, St. Paul,” Obama said. He described federal agents operating “without any clear guidelines, training, pulling people out of their homes … tear-gassing crowds simply who were standing there, not breaking any laws.”
Obama compared the tactics to conduct “we’ve seen in authoritarian countries and we’ve seen in dictatorships, but we have not seen in America,” calling the actions “deeply concerning and dangerous.”
The enforcement surge followed the January killings of protesters Renee Good and Alex Pretti during confrontations with immigration agents, events that sparked outrage locally and nationally. The Trump administration recently announced it would end its monthslong surge in Minnesota.
Obama praised residents who engaged in peaceful protest, noting that many used whistles, car horns and phone cameras to alert neighbors and document encounters with agents.
“That kind of heroic, sustained behavior in subzero weather by ordinary people is what should give us hope,” he said.
Though Obama largely stepped back from daily political commentary during former President Joe Biden’s term, his latest interview signals a more vocal stance as he frames both the Minnesota enforcement actions and the racist video as part of a broader breakdown in democratic norms.
America can restore “norms, rule of law (and) decency,” Obama argued, by collectively saying “enough.”