Barack Obama blasts democrats as he tells companies to quit sucking up to the Trump administration

President Barack Obama is blasting institutions and businesses for cozying up to the Trump administration, saying they had the “capacity to take a stand” instead of caving under political pressure.

In a recent talk on the final episode of Marc Maron’s long-running WTF With Marc Maron podcast, Obama didn’t hold back, pointing a finger at law firms, universities, and major corporations for changing course during the Trump years instead of standing by their core convictions.

It’s a pretty strong statement from the former president, and you can tell he’s genuinely annoyed that these powerful organizations didn’t try to “ride this out” and keep their integrity intact. Obama argued that when faced with pressure from the administration, these institutions should’ve been ready to tough it out. Obama has been vocal lately, and it’s good to see.

For example, he noted that universities should have been able to say, “This will hurt if we lose some grant money in the federal government, but that’s what endowments are for. Let’s see if we can ride this out, because what we’re not going to do is compromise our basic academic independence.”

Obama has some hard words for the people

Miller, of course, was the top White House aide and architect of Trump’s hardline immigration policy. It’s a clear message: businesses should’ve been louder about their commitment to inclusion because, as Obama put it, “We think it’s important, because of what this country is, to hire people from different backgrounds”.

The former president is talking about real-world stuff that went down during that administration. We’re talking about universities, law firms, and corporations that reached settlements with the White House, including dropping DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) targets and agreeing to rein in campus antisemitism to get federal funding restored.

A series of powerful Washington law firms even agreed to provide free legal services to the administration, while major corporations just quietly rolled back their diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives. It feels like this “sucking up” to the administration was happening all over, and it’s disappointing. Even a giant like Disney, which is often a political target from both sides, scrapped its internal DEI program for a softer “Opportunity & Inclusion” program, aiming to empower “all through access, opportunity, and a culture of belonging”.

The Hawaiian born Obama told Maron, “It cracked me up,” and then admitted that he’d said something similar a few years ago: “Look, you can’t just be a scold all the time. You can’t constantly lecture people without acknowledging you’ve got some blind spots, too”. This is a clear warning to people on the left.

He went on to criticize what he called “weird progressive language” that implied a feeling of superiority. He saw this language as implying a “holier than thou superiority that’s not different to what we used to joke about coming from the right and the moral majority… and certain fundamentalism that I think was dangerous”.