Donald Trump has finally found files that he’s enthusiastic about releasing. In an interview aboard Air Force One, the president said that former president Barack Obama made a “big mistake” in his handling of classified information about aliens. Later on, Trump announced that he was looking into releasing some of the files the U.S. government has gathered relating to extraterrestrial life.
This comes as the president has been unabashedly against releasing information about an alleged global child trafficking ring, and has even floated the idea of ending the customary jobs reports. No matter who you ask, these are core issues that affect people’s day-to-day lives. Yet the president would rather focus on something that’s probably best left to Joe Rogan podcast fodder and Reddit chat rooms.
Ironically, when Obama originally shared his take on whether aliens are real, he wasn’t speaking in any official capacity. He was appearing on Brian Tyler Cohen’s podcast, where the former president covered a wide-ranging set of topics, including whether he believed iconic 1990s rapper Tupac Shakur was still alive. Obama theorized that aliens are likely real but clarified that he had personally never seen any evidence of them. The segment went so viral that Obama later issued a statement saying, “Statistically, the universe is so vast that the odds are good there’s life out there. But the distances between solar systems are so great that the chances we’ve been visited by aliens are low, and I saw no evidence during my presidency that extraterrestrials have made contact with us. Really!”
Trump was later asked about Obama’s comments by a Fox News correspondent, and he added his own two cents, saying, “He gave classified information. He’s not supposed to be doing that. I don’t know if they’re real or not… I can tell you he gave classified information. He made a big mistake.”
That comment caught on, and considering the president has so many other things he would rather not address, he doubled down just hours later on Truth Social. In the post, Trump wrote in part, “I will be directing the Secretary of War, and other relevant Departments and Agencies, to begin the process of identifying and releasing Government files related to alien and extraterrestrial life, unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP), and unidentified flying objects (UFOs).”
On X, many people immediately saw the move for the distraction that it was. Much of the commentary questioned why this was being prioritized instead of the Epstein files. Others wondered why the story was being pushed so aggressively when regular people don’t particularly care about it. One person even joked that perhaps these were the “illegal aliens” Trump has been complaining about this entire time — the ones he claims are somehow swaying elections against him.
They’ve deployed the ultimate weapon of mass distraction, but the Epstein files aren’t going away… even for aliens. https://t.co/u050EhKkMm
— Thomas Massie (@RepThomasMassie) February 20, 2026
The Epstein files must be serious bad if you need aliens now
— 🦋Ann Van Haute 🦋 (@Anneke172351868) February 20, 2026
Wow, the first Eight stories on my Twitter feed were about this. I've never EVER seen that kind of consistency in my feed. Especially on a story regular people aren't that interested in.
— Nathan Benoit (@NateSBenoit) February 20, 2026
Trump’s gonna let aliens vote to counter the Democrats and beat them at their own game
— 3knees (@3knees1) February 20, 2026
Space exploration is interesting. One could even argue it is essential, as much of modern technology and communication relies on what astronauts have been able to achieve since the 1960s. But it feels like a mockery of that revered profession to use it as a piece of political theater again, especially when the public is questioning whether the administration has their best interests at heart.
The administration likely already knows that this particular distraction isn’t working. Perhaps the next step should now focus on releasing the Tupac files. Whatever sticks, after all.
Published: Feb 20, 2026 07:41 am