Former President Barack Obama made his first statement since leaving the White House Monday. | Getty Obama supports protests: ‘American values are at stake’ It is Obama's first statement since leaving the White House.

Barack Obama spoke out Monday afternoon against his successor — and in support of the protests opposing President Donald Trump — with a spokesman saying the former president thinks they’re “citizens exercising their Constitutional right to assemble, organize and have their voices heard by their elected officials is exactly what we expect to see when American values are at stake.”

Obama, who left office vowing to uphold the presidential tradition of not criticizing his successor but also promising to speak out when he saw core values under threat by Trump, made it all of 10 days before releasing a statement following Friday's executive order that temporarily halted the nation's refugee program and severely restricted immigration from seven predominantly Muslim countries.


Obama flew to California immediately after the inauguration and a farewell speech to staff at Andrews Air Force Base, where he called Trump’s presidency “not a period,” but “a comma in the continuing story of building America.” He later flew to the Caribbean. He has still not returned to Washington, where he is expected to live for at least the next year and a half.

When a reporter at the daily press briefing on Monday raised the existence of the statement without providing detail, White House press secretary Sean Spicer’s response was only “Okay, thank you.”

The statement from Obama’s office (notably not in his voice directly) is extraordinary compared to the usual deference between presidents, but reflects both the existential threat that Obama truly believes Trump poses to the country and a Democratic Party brimming with anti-Trump energy but lacking any clear leaders.

Kevin Lewis, Obama’s post-presidency spokesman, said he “is heartened by the level of engagement taking place in communities around the country.”

“With regard to comparisons to President Obama’s foreign policy decisions, as we’ve heard before, the president fundamentally disagrees with the notion of discriminating against individuals because of their faith or religion,” Lewis added, highlighting November 2015 comments from Obama about a Muslim ban.

Among those comments: “I think it is very important for us right now — particularly those who are in leadership, particularly those who have a platform and can be heard — not to fall into that trap, not to feed that dark impulse inside of us.