After seeing his successor’s radical rhetoric about medicine and vaccines, the former Democratic president apparently felt the need to speak out.
Days before leaving office, @barackobama.bsky.social said he’d largely remain on the sidelines, except when “our core values†are at stake.
Nine years later, Obama is apparently seeing our core values in jeopardy with increasing frequency. Take this week, for example www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddo...
— Steve Benen (@stevebenen.com) 2025-09-25T16:26:15.157Z
https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/violence-truth-obama-takes-aim-trumps-bogus-tylenol-claims-rcna233690
Nearly nine years later, Obama is apparently seeing our core values in jeopardy with increasing frequency. Take this week, for example. Politico reported:
Barack Obama has accused President Donald Trump of ‘violence against the truth’ for linking autism to the use of Tylenol by pregnant women. The former president made a direct attack on his successor that was as rare for its forcefulness as for its setting — an arena stage on foreign soil in London on Wednesday — as he warned that the Trump administration’s claims undermine public health.
Speaking to a large crowd at London’s O2 Arena, the former president said,
“We have the spectacle of my successor in the Oval Office, making broad claims around certain drugs and autism that have been continuously disproved.”
He added,
“The degree to which that undermines public health, the degree to which that can do harm to women who are pregnant, the degree to which that creates anxiety for parents who do have children who are autistic — which, by the way, itself is subject to a spectrum, and a lot of what is being trumpeted as these massive increases actually have to do with a broadening of the criteria across that spectrum so that people can actually get services and help. All of that is violence against the truth.”.
And while it’s true that Obama was speaking at the time to a foreign audience, it’s also true that he wanted a domestic audience to be aware of his comments: The Democrat promoted excerpts from his appearance, including his Trump criticisms, via social media.
We have people in power making broad claims around certain drugs and autism that have been continuously disproven.
— Barack Obama (@barackobama.bsky.social) 2025-09-25T14:02:35.168Z
This was notable in its own right, especially given how dangerous Trump’s misguided claims about medicine, vaccines and public health have been. But circling back to our recent coverage, it’s also worth emphasizing the recent pattern involving the former president.,,,,,
In September, Obama slammed Trump for politicizing the Charlie Kirk shooting and not doing more to unite the country, before taking rhetorical aim at the right’s recent efforts to undermine the First Amendment.
A week later, the former president also shared a few thoughts about his successor’s anti-Tylenol rant.
When thinking about Trump’s most prominent and most vocal Democratic critics, Obama does not spring immediately to mind. That, however, is starting to change.
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