Obama: Institutions dealing with Trump ‘have fallen victim’ to ‘everything is about money’

Former President Obama on Tuesday accused institutions working with President Trump of having “fallen victim” to the notion that “everything is about money.”

The former president, along with former first lady Michelle Obama, spoke before the opening ceremony for the Obama Presidential Center in Chicago. He then moved on to his criticism of institutions, without using Trump’s name.

“We’ve got a set of institutions that have fallen victim to the siren song of ‘everything is about money, and everything is about attention, and everything is about fame, and everything is about getting over,'” Obama said. “But meanwhile, there are just a lot of people out here doing the right thing and raising their families and taking care of people.”

He praised the ethics of the former first lady’s parents, who both have parts of the center dedicated to them. Obama said his in-laws represent to him “what’s best about this country and what’s best about our values.”

“People who aren’t trying to get every last nickel and aren’t cutting corners when it comes to values and treat people high and low with respect and kindness and handle their business, just salt of the earth, bedrock people,” he said.

The 44th president has long been critical of his successor, though at times they have appeared cordial on the rare occasions that they have been seen together. He told The New Yorker last month that he has been selective in critiquing Trump and that continuously doing so would leave him as a “commentator” instead of a political leader.

“And, I think, when they do see me, then the sense is, ‘Well, why isn’t he doing that every day instead of just during a midterm election, or during a referendum campaign around gerrymandering, or what have you?'” he told the outlet.

But his remarks about institutions harken back to the start of Trump’s second term, when some Democrats accused tech business leaders of being part of an oligarchy cozy to the incoming administration.

Former President Biden, Obama’s two-term vice president, echoed this by warning of “an oligarchy … taking shape in America.” Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who launched a multicity circuit last year dubbed the “Fighting Oligarchy Tour,” made a similar warning in an interview on NBC News’s “Meet the Press.”

“I think [the American people] understand very well, when the top 1 percent owns more wealth than the bottom 90 percent, when big money interests are able to control both political parties, they are living in an oligarchy,” Sanders told host Kristen Welker at the time.

Other Democrats, however, disagree. Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) told Politico last year that using the term “oligarchy” should be stripped from the Democratic Party’s vocabulary, arguing that it does not resonate beyond coastal institutions.