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Tag: Barack Obama

  • Former Sony Exec Says Obama Called Him After the Big Hack to Trash ‘The Interview’

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    Post-presidency, Obama has remained relatively tapped out of current events and politics. Outside of a few rare, emergency exceptions where he felt it necessary to get back into the weeds—like the threat of NBA players striking or Bernie Sanders winning the Democratic primary—he’s mostly laid low and let our current elected officials cook. His plate’s been full enough getting that spooky presidential library built, meticulously hand-crafting those end-of-year fav lists we all love, and spilling ET tea on podcasts. And of course, there’s also the production company that he runs with Michelle that puts out bangers like the AARP Movies for Grownups Award nominee Leave the World Behind (2023).

    Before he was fully Hollywood Barack, he was merely President Barack who quietly aspired to get in on Tinseltown wheelings and dealings. However, hints of his future media mogul aspirations were there all along. One such example is reportedly in the pages of a forthcoming memoir by former Sony Pictures Entertainment CEO Michael Lynton (and co-author Joshua L. Steiner). In From Mistakes to Meaning: Owning Your Past So It Doesn’t Own You, Lynton recalls an unexpected interaction with the then-sitting president that took place right after the infamous mid-aughts hack by an alleged North Korean operative that hit Sony and threatened to bring the whole studio down.

    Let’s properly set the scene for Lynton’s anecdote.

    INT. SONY PICTURES CEO’S OFFICE – JULY 2015 – NIGHT

    MICHAEL LYNTON, 55, sits at his desk, still cleaning up the mess left by hacker group “Guardians of Peace” eight months later. After breaching Sony’s network and melting 70 percent of the studio’s servers, they made off with a trove of sensitive data, including unfinished scripts for unannounced films and 47,000 Social Security numbers. Making matters worse were the emails they later leaked, which resulted in Amy Pascal’s exodus and strained relationships with talent. And all this over some dumb Seth Rogen comedy about assassinating Kim Jong Il.

    MICHAEL
    I can’t even with these hackers. They’ve taken my studio from Gucci to ratchet.

    Suddenly, Michael’s phone lights up, announcing an unknown caller.

    As Lynton’s book explains, he and the rest of the world had just learned of North Korea being the likely culprit behind the hacks and the production of “The Interview” being a motivating factor, when the President deigned to give him an earful.

    “What were you thinking when you made killing the leader of a hostile foreign nation a plot point? Of course, that was a mistake,” chided Obama.

    Living up to the title of his book, Lynton makes no bones about regretting greenlighting that film in a way that inadvertently adds some funny context to Rogen’s current series, The Studio, where he stars as a bumbling, validation-seeking studio executive.

    “I wanted to join the badass gang that made subversive movies. For a moment, I wanted to hang—as an equal—with the actors,” said Lynton. “The party got out of hand, and the company, its employees, my family, and I all paid dearly.”

    Sobering words, but that past does indeed seem owned. And who among us doesn’t have a few past mistakes that need owning? Whether you didn’t properly show up in a relationship or just bailed out the banks responsible for the 2008 Global Financial Crisis, it’s never too late for a mea culpa. Lynton’s book hits bookstore shelves on Feb. 24 if you or anyone else in your life could use a little guidance.

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    Justin Caffier

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  • In Context: Here’s what Obama said about aliens

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    President Donald Trump said Thursday he will direct multiple U.S. government agencies to declassify files related to aliens and UFOs.  

    The move came five days after former President Barack Obama sparked interest in the topic by saying aliens are real.

    Obama made the comments in a Feb. 14 interview with political commentator and podcaster Brian Tyler Cohen, who asked Obama a lightning round of questions, including whether aliens are real. Obama’s answer in the affirmative quickly went viral on social media. 

    Aboard  Air Force One Feb. 19, Fox News senior White House correspondent Peter Doocy asked Trump: “So aliens are real?”

    “Well, I don’t know if they’re real or not,” Trump said. “I can tell you (Obama) gave classified information. He’s not supposed to be doing that. He made a big mistake. He took it out of classified information.”

    Doocy then said Trump, as president, can declassify anything he wants to. 

    “I may get him out of trouble by declassifying it,” Trump responded, referring to Obama.

    Hours later, Trump said on Truth Social he would do just that.

    “Based on the tremendous interest shown, 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),” Trump’s Feb. 19 post read. 

    Here are Obama’s comments during Cohen’s speed-round interview, when the former president answered several questions in a short period of time.

    Cohen: “So I want to do a little bit of a lightning round here, because it’s not often I’ll get access to the president of the United States. So a couple questions here. Are aliens real?”

    Obama: “They’re real, but I haven’t seen them, and they’re not being kept in, what is it?”

    Cohen: “Area 51?”

    Obama: “Area 51. There’s no underground facility, unless there’s this enormous conspiracy, and they hid it from the president of the United States.”

    Declassified documents released in 2013 during Obama’s presidency acknowledged the existence of Area 51, saying that the secret government space was used as an aerial testing ground for U.S. government projects.

    Obama clarified his podcast remarks on social media, saying, “I was trying to stick with the spirit of the speed round, but since it’s gotten attention let me clarify. 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 is low, and I saw no evidence during my presidency that extraterrestrials have made contact with us. Really!”

    While not discovered, there’s a possibility that there could be life on other planets; NASA researchers said in August 2025 that they found a long-lasting source of chemical energy in the ancient past of planet Ceres that could have made it possible for microorganisms to survive. NASA noted that this doesn’t mean that Ceres had life, but that there was likely “food” available should life have ever arisen on Ceres. 

    In 2024 the Pentagon’s UFO office, called the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, said it found “no evidence of extraterrestrial beings, activity, or technologies.”

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  • How inKind CEO Johann Moonesinghe Is Trying to Fix the Restaurant Business

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    Johann Moonesinghe built inKind to finance restaurants with dining credits instead of debt, reshaping how capital flows into food and drink. Courtesy inKind

    Restaurants are a notoriously tough and thankless business. Even the good ones can be financially fragile. That’s why it’s almost unheard of for venture capitalists to back them. But inKind, a platform that writes checks ranging from $100,000 to $10 million to thousands of restaurants, comes close. Its founder and CEO, Johann Moonesinghe, believes he has found a formula that lets everyone win: investors, restaurant owners and customers alike.

    inKind operates an app that functions like a ClassPass for restaurants and bars. It sells dining credits that can be used at thousands of restaurants on the platform—plus a 20 percent reward that can be redeemed on a future visit. The appeal for diners is obvious.

    Behind the scenes, however, the model is more unusual. inKind raises money from investors and uses those funds to finance individual restaurants. Instead of collecting interest or betting on a massive exit years down the road, inKind takes a share of a restaurant’s future revenue in the form of dining credits—often heavily discounted—which it then sells for a profit.

    For example, inKind might give a restaurant $1 million in cash in exchange for $2 million in dining credits, then sell those credits for $1.5 million to app users. For inKind, the biggest risk is how long a restaurant stays in business. If it buys two years’ worth of credits but the restaurant closes after six months, inKind theoretically loses money. That risk is partly mitigated by having thousands of restaurants on the platform, but if closures were to happen at scale, the damage could be serious.

    “In the first year, I lost 50 percent of the money that I funded to restaurants because I didn’t know how much credit to buy,” Moonesinghe told Observer. “I bought $100,000 in donut credits from some donut place in Michigan. It was impossible to sell it. So it took us years and years to get better at underwriting and building the consumer base to sell the credit.”

    For restaurants, the math is more complicated. Moonesinghe argues that because the cost of food is typically only 20 to 30 percent of the menu price, restaurants can still make a profit by selling credits to inKind at half the menu price. Of course, food isn’t a restaurant’s only expense. The real question is whether a restaurant can cover its remaining costs through smart management or enough revenue from non-inKind customers.

    “We really wanted to create a business model where every stakeholder wins,” said Moonesinghe, who owns four restaurants between Austin, Scottsdale and Las Vegas. “If I had opened my restaurants in the traditional way, I wouldn’t be making any money on those restaurants today. All of that money would be going back to pay my investor.”

    To date, inKind has provided more than $600 million in funding to over 6,000 restaurants across the U.S. The company recently raised another $450 million from investors and is aiming to add more than 10,000 restaurants to the platform this year.

    The latest funding round was led by Magnetar Capital. Participants included notable names such as Jay-Z’s investment firm MarcyPen Capital Ventures, former Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang, all four members of the band Metallica and more than a dozen restaurant owners.

    The overwhelming investor interest marks a sharp reversal from inKind’s early years, when Moonesinghe largely funded the company with his own money and struggled to attract outside capital. He launched inKind in 2016 in Austin with his husband Andrew Harris, his late brother Rajan Moonesinghe and product designer Marcus Triest. Moonesinghe said the company’s early days were so capital-intensive that he and his husband cashed out their home and retirement accounts to keep it alive.

    “Venture investors hated our business because we’re so balance sheet heavy, we require so much money to give the restaurants,” he said. “And the debt partners didn’t want to lend us, because they’re like, restaurants are the most risky.”

    Now, Moonesinghe says fundraising is entirely relationship-driven, and he’s highly selective about whose money he takes. MarcyPen—the investment vehicle formed from a merger between Jay-Z’s Marcy Venture Partners and the investment arm of Pendulum Holdings, founded by former Barack Obama adviser Robbie Robinson—was the first institutional investor inKind brought on.

    “These guys really understand us. They understand the brand we’re trying to build. They’re great investors and super well-connected. They love wine, I love wine. So we ended up creating a relationship,” Moonesinghe said.

    Because of this relationship-based fundraising approach, inKind’s founders still own more than 75 percent of the company. “This allows us to take a really, really long-term approach. That’s our biggest asset,” Moonesinghe said. “We don’t need an exit. We don’t need to quickly get out of deals. For us, if we can help the restaurants do well and make money for their owners, even if a deal is taking us longer to sell their credit, that’s okay.”

    How inKind CEO Johann Moonesinghe Is Trying to Fix the Restaurant Business

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    Sissi Cao

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  • Presidents’ Days: From Obama to Trump

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    Obama had started out, like so many, thinking that Trump was little more than a comical, if malevolent, real-estate hawker. Trump’s early and bellowing deployment of the racist “birther” theory gave Obama every reason to hate him; he chose, instead, to laugh at him. In January, 2016, Matt Lauer, then at NBC, asked Obama, “So, when you stand and deliver that State of the Union address, in no part of your mind and brain can you imagine Donald Trump standing up one day and delivering the State of the Union address?”

    Obama laughed. “Well,” he said, “I can imagine it in a ‘Saturday Night’ skit.”

    Even in the last days before the election, as the Clinton team faltered, Obama’s campaign guru David Plouffe still insisted that Clinton was a “one-hundred-per-cent” lock and instructed worrywarts to stop “wetting the bed.”

    Like Plouffe, Obama proved to be a poor prognosticator. Not only did he (along with, in fairness, nearly everyone) fail to anticipate Trump’s victory, he failed to comprehend the degree to which Trump would, particularly in his second term, set out to demolish the principles and the institutions that Obama had defended in Athens. Obama met with Trump at the White House following the election, on November 10th. Not long afterward, Obama told me, in an interview in the Oval Office, “I don’t believe in apocalyptic—until the apocalypse comes. I think nothing is the end of the world until the end of the world.” In fact, he had told his staffers, who were stunned by Clinton’s loss, many of them weeping, that sometimes losing was the nature of democracy, that history does not move in straight lines.

    “People were mired in despondency, and he thought part of his goal was to keep people pointed in the right direction,” David Axelrod, Obama’s senior adviser and political consultant, told me recently. “Our norms and institutions have proven more vulnerable to Trump’s assaults than President Obama imagined then.”

    Obama told me at the time that he had accomplished “seventy or seventy-five per cent” of what he had set out to do, and that only fifteen or twenty per cent of what he had achieved would probably get “rolled back” by Trump. “But there’s still a lot of stuff that sticks.” This badly underestimated what was to come. Not only has Trump undermined government institutions and basic norms, he has, through his example, through his daily insults and his late-night social-media rants, normalized a level of racism, misogyny, and gratuitous division that cannot be calculated by percentages.

    Here and there in the oral-history archive, people in the Obama circle refer to Trump’s racism, particularly the birther rhetoric that propelled his first campaign. Nearly a decade later, as I was watching and reading these interviews, the background noise was, as usual, incessant: there was Trump showering contempt on female reporters and sharing a racist video that depicted Barack and Michelle Obama as apes. This is such routine behavior from Trump that, as news stories, they pass quickly and, of course, with no apology.

    Out of office, the Obamas have handled these grotesque insults differently. Michelle Obama harbors deep anger at Trump, according to knowledgeable sources, and has made it plain that she wants nothing to do with him. She believed that the birther rhetoric endangered her family, and things only got worse from there. As a matter of obligation, Obama is still capable of sitting next to Trump, as he did at Jimmy Carter’s funeral, last year, and exchanging pleasant banalities. When I raised this with two of Obama’s closest aides, Axelrod and Ben Rhodes, they both referred to the analogous predicament of Jackie Robinson, who was the first Black player in modern major-league baseball, and who made it a matter of principle to endure and absorb every slur with an almost superhuman dignity. The pathfinder’s predicament. In private, Obama usually does not lash out angrily about the Trumpism of the day—that is not his temperament—but he will routinely ask people to imagine the response if he had been the one to, say, rage-post hateful videos at 2 A.M. or use his office to enrich his family by billions of dollars.

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    David Remnick

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  • Anthony Edwards claims MVP award, leads Stars to tourney win in an entertaining NBA All-Star Game

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    Anthony Edwards won the Most Valuable Player award while leading his “Stars” team past their fellow Americans on the “Stripes” team 47-21 to win the final of the NBA All-Star Game on Sunday.

    The Minnesota Timberwolves star claimed his first All-Star MVP award with a tying 3-pointer in the first round-robin game followed by eight points in the final, which was the only chapter without a dramatic late finish in this mini-tournament comprising the main event of All-Star weekend at the Los Angeles Clippers’ Intuit Dome.

    USA Stars guard Anthony Edwards reacts after scoring during the NBA All-Star basketball game against USA Stripes Sunday, Feb. 15, 2026, in Inglewood, Calif.

    Mark J. Terrill / AP


    The NBA’s fourth format in four years matched two teams of American All-Stars against a team representing the World, hoping to stoke nationalistic passion from players and fans during an Olympic year.

    The slightly older Stripes had beaten the slightly younger Stars on De’Aaron Fox’s 3-pointer at the buzzer in the second 12-minute, round-robin game. But Edwards led the Stars to victory in the rematch with the Stripes, who appeared to run out of gas while playing in their third straight mini-game.

    “We chose to compete today, and we came out on top,” Edwards said. “I ain’t going to lie, Wemby set the tone. He came out and played hard, and we had to follow that.”

    Indeed, Victor Wembanyama effectively challenged his fellow All-Stars to take this game seriously, and they largely appeared to do it. Despite going 0-2, Wembanyama led the World team in scoring in both games with 14 points in the opener and 19 in the third game.

    Along with the late-game theatrics, the event generally appeared to be played at a higher level of competitiveness than most All-Star Games in recent years, suggesting the league might have finally cracked the code on the long-standing question of how to make this midseason showcase more entertaining.

    “It was a pretty good display of basketball,” Wembanyama said. “Better than last year, in my opinion. It was fun. … I think being honest with ourselves is good. It’s a game we love, it’s a game I personally cherish, so being competitive is the least I can do.”

    NBA Commissioner Adam Silver thanked the All-Stars for playing hard when he presented the championship trophy to the Stars.

    Kawhi Leonard thrilled his home crowd with a 31-point barrage for the Stripes in the final round-robin game, but he managed just one point in the final. Tyrese Maxey led the Stars with nine points in the clincher.

    Scottie Barnes won the opening 12-minute game for the Stars with a game-ending 3-pointer in overtime, beating the World 37-36 after Edwards forced OT.

    After Fox’s dagger in the second game, Leonard utterly dominated the third game before hitting a tiebreaking 3-pointer with 3.5 seconds left in the Stripes’ 48-45 victory.

    The World team was loaded with talent, but NBA scoring leader Luka Doncic and three-time MVP Nikola Jokic both sat out its second game, likely to preserve the health of two superstars who have struggled with injury in the past month.

    John Tesh took the court with his band before the game for a live rendition of “Roundball Rock,” the iconic 1990s theme song of “NBA on NBC,” to mark the league’s return to the network this season. That network partnership is also the reason the All-Star Game was an afternoon affair on the West Coast, because NBC airs the Winter Olympics at night.

    The Intuit Dome crowd included former President Barack Obama, who received a standing ovation pregame.

    75th NBA All-Star Game

    Scottie Barnes of the Toronto Raptors and Team USA Stars and Cade Cunningham of the Detroit Pistons and Team USA Stars celebrate after Barnes’ game-winning basket against Team World during the 75th NBA All-Star Game at Intuit Dome on February 15, 2026 in Inglewood, California.

    Ronald Martinez / Getty Images


    First Game

    Edwards scored 13 points and forced overtime on a 3-pointer with 13.3 seconds left in regulation to begin the mini-tourney.

    Edwards hit a 14-footer to begin the first-to-five-points overtime period. Wembanyama made a 3-pointer, but Raptors star Barnes ended it by draining his only shot of the game.

    Karl-Anthony Towns added 10 points, but Norman Powell — a born-and-raised Californian who represents Jamaica internationally — missed a potential winning shot for the World at the regulation buzzer.

    NBA scoring leader Doncic played the first 5:05 for the World in the opening game before sitting down. The Lakers superstar hadn’t played since Feb. 5 due to a hamstring strain, but he was determined to play after receiving his sixth All-Star nod.

    Team USA Stars defeated Team USA Stripes 47-21 to win the 75th NBA All-Star game at Intuit Dome in Inglewood.

    LeBron James of Team USA Stripes drives past Karl-Anthony Town of Team World in the third game of the 75th NBA All-Star game at Intuit Dome in Inglewood on Sunday February 15, 2026.

    Keith Birmingham/MediaNews Group/Pasadena Star-News via Getty Images


    Second Game

    Donovan Mitchell took a pass under the net from LeBron James and kicked it out to Fox on the perimeter for the winner.

    Jaylen Brown led the Stripes with 11 points, and James scored eight to begin his record 21st All-Star appearance.

    Edwards and Cade Cunningham scored 11 points apiece for the Stars.

    “Old heads 1-0,” James said with a laugh. “We’ve got a lot of guys that have played a lot of basketball, so no matter what’s going on, we know how to keep our composure and execute.”

    A few hours beforehand, the top scorer in NBA history said the game’s presence in the Los Angeles area meant “nothing, because this is not our building. This is a road game.”

    Indeed, the Clippers fans in Intuit Dome booed James and Doncic whenever they touched the ball in the first two games.

    Team USA Stars defeated Team USA Stripes 47-21 to win the 75th NBA All-Star game at Intuit Dome in Inglewood.

    Kawhi Leonard of team USA Stripes Drives to the basket against Team World in the third game of the 75th NBA All-Star game at Intuit Dome in Inglewood on Sunday February 15, 2026. 

    Keith Birmingham/MediaNews Group/Pasadena Star-News via Getty Images


    Third Game

    Leonard thrilled his home crowd with a dynamic effort, going 11 of 13 and 6 of 7 from beyond the arc. The seven-time All-Star made his first seven shots with five 3-pointers amid raucous cheers from the extra-steep supporters’ section called The Wall behind one basket at this futuristic 18-month-old arena.

    He was unstoppable despite a reasonable defensive effort from the World team led by Wembanyama, who scored 19 points before missing a tying 3-pointer attempt at the buzzer.

    James put the Stripes ahead with 31 seconds left on a putback dunk, but Wembanyama hit two free throws to tie it before Leonard called game.

    Jokic and Doncic didn’t play, leaving the World with just seven players.

    Up next

    The All-Star weekend stays out West in February 2027 when Phoenix hosts for the fourth time.

    In:

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    CBS Minnesota

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  • Unbothered?! Barack Obama Breaks Silence On Viral Clip Showing Him & Michelle As Apes On Trump’s Truth Social Account (VIDEOS)

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    Whew! Barack Obama is weighing in on the wild world of social media and public discourse, and it looks like President Donald Trump might’ve sparked another round of online chaos. Across social media, folks were reacting in full force after a controversial clip involving the Obama’s made its way across timelines. And now, the former POTUS is finally speaking out.

    RELATED: Trump & White House Address Backlash Over Controversial Video Depicting Obamas As Apes (VIDEO)

    Obama Stays Unbothered Amid Trump Drama

    In a recent interview on ‘No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen,’ former POTUS Barack Obama didn’t hold back when discussing social media controversy, indirectly addressing a viral video on former President Donald Trump’s Truth Social. He called out the loss of shame and decorum in public behavior, saying, “And what is true is that there doesn’t seem to be any shame about this among people who used to feel like you had to have some sort of decorum and a sense of propriety and respect for the office.” Additionally, Obama reflected on the contrast between the online chaos and the everyday kindness he still sees across the country.

    He also shared these thoughts during the podcast conversation, noting that while the social media “clown show” chaos “gets attention” and serves as a distraction, it doesn’t reflect the majority of Americans. While traveling around the U.S., he still meets people who “still believe in decency, courtesy, and kindness,” Obama shared. Furthermore, he emphasized that even amid the online madness, him and Michelle remain unbothered and steadfast.

    The Roomies Didn’t Come To Play On This One

    As soon as the clip dropped, folks ran straight to TSR’s Instagram comment section, praising Obama for being a class act. Meanwhile, a few cheekily asked when is he going to say “it’s on sight” to Trump. And, of course, many just admitted they miss the days of him in office.

    One Instagram user @frog_ismynickname said, “When President Obama speaks… we listen. 🎤🙌”

    This Instagram user @theamyyedit shared, “I miss having an articulate, well mannered president 🥹”

    And, Instagram user @_lavishlifechi added, “Very classy and well spoken …. my FOREVER president 😌”

    Meanwhile, Instagram user @kissesfromkayy wrote, “Hearing his voice is comforting and reassuring 🥺🤎”

    While Instagram user @spoken_highly commented, “Greatly Put Mr.President 🫡”

    Finally, Instagram user @sirramoan said, “…a part of me wishes he’d be like ‘look, he knows when he sees me it’s on sight’“

    The Video That Had Everyone Talking

    As previously reported, the offensive clip in question crudely depicted Barack and Michelle Obama as apes and sparked immediate outrage across the political spectrum. Democrats, Republicans, and senior GOP members like Senator Tim Scott condemned it, with Scott calling it “the most racist thing I’ve seen out of this White House.” The White House initially dismissed the backlash as “fake outrage” before blaming a staffer and eventually deleting the post.

    RELATED: What Was Posted?! Social Media Is Goin’ OFF After Clip Shared On Trump’s Truth Social Account Showed Obamas Depicted As Apes (VIDEO)

    What Do You Think Roomies?

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    Desjah

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  • Obama says aliens ‘are real, but I haven’t seen them’ in recent podcast interview

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    US lawmakers call for investigations into UAP sightings

    Fox News chief political anchor Bret Baier examines the trail of UAP research over decades and the alleged information past U.S. Presidents have been briefed on regarding so-called ‘unexplained encounters’ on ‘Special Report.’

    NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!

    Did former President Barack Obama finally answer one of the world’s biggest mysteries?

    During an appearance Saturday on Brian Tyler Cohen’s podcast, the former commander in chief was asked directly if aliens were real.

    “They’re real, but I haven’t seen them,” Obama answered.

    The 44th president also said aliens were not being kept at the Nevada Air Force base known as Area 51.

    UFO SECRET FILES, DRONE SWARMS AND NUCLEAR-LINKED SIGHTINGS STUN EXPERTS IN 2025

    Former President Barack Obama joked on a podcast that aliens are real but said he has not seen them. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images;Netflix)

    “There’s no underground facility, unless there’s this enormous conspiracy and they hid it from the President of the United States,” Obama continued.

    Cohen then asked what Obama’s first question was after becoming president — and it again involved aliens.

    “Uh, where are the aliens?” he joked.

    JD VANCE SAYS UFOS, ALIENS COULD BE ‘SPIRITUAL FORCES’ AS VP VOWS TO ‘GET TO THE BOTTOM’ OF MYSTERY IN SKIES

    A UFO is circled in red in a black and white surveillance image

    Enigma has received more than 9,000 witness sightings of mysterious objects within 10 miles of United States’ shorelines since August 2025, according to the company’s website. (iStock)

    Saturday’s interview was not the first time Obama talked about the possible existence of extraterrestrial life.

    During a 2021 appearance on “The Late Late Show with James Corden,” Obama said that after taking office, he sought information on aliens and whether they were being studied in a secret lab. He was told the answer was “no.”

    But Obama did note that officials are seriously investigating aircraft that behave in seemingly unexplainable ways.

    HOUSE WITNESS TESTIFIES UFOS NEARLY ACTIVATED RUSSIAN NUCLEAR MISSILES DURING 1982 INCIDENT

    A stock photo of UFOs

    Crowdsourced data in 2025 mapped clusters of UFO and underwater object sightings along U.S. coastlines. (iStock)

    “There is footage and records of objects in the skies that we don’t know exactly what they are,” he said. “We can’t explain how they moved, their trajectory. They did not have an easily explainable pattern. I think people still take seriously trying to investigate and figure out what that is.”

    Fox News White House correspondent Peter Doocy later asked President Joe Biden about Obama’s comments, referring to unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP).

    “What do you think that it is?”

    Biden replied, “I would ask (Obama) again.”

    CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP

    UAPs have gained attention in recent years, including from the federal government.

    Congress passed the Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Disclosure Act in 2023 and the Department of War has also created the All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office.

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  • Unbothered Obamas Ignore Trump’s Trolling As Kamala Harris & Hakeem Jeffries Accuse White House Of ‘Cover-Up’ Over Racist Ape Video

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    Former President Barack Obama and former First Lady Michelle Obama broke their public silence for the first time since President Donald Trump faced backlash for sharing a racist, AI-generated video depicting them as apes. Yet, they made no reference to the controversy.

    Source: Anadolu / Getty

    According to Newsweek, the Obamas instead used their social media platforms Friday evening to express support for U.S. athletes competing in the Winter Olympics and Paralympics, choosing not to engage with the uproar surrounding the since-deleted video. Their decision came just hours after Trump removed the clip from his Truth Social account and later defended the post without offering an apology.

    Barack Obama congratulated Team USA in a post on X, writing that he and Michelle were proud of the athletes’ “talent and perseverance” and would be cheering them on. Michelle Obama echoed that message, calling the athletes’ journeys to the world stage “inspiring” as they competed in Italy. The omission was striking given that the video backlash dominated political conversation throughout the week.

    While the Obamas stayed silent, Democratic leaders escalated their criticism, accusing the White House of attempting to shield the president from accountability.

    Harris: ‘No One Believes This Cover-Up’

    Former Vice President Kamala Harris directly challenged the White House’s explanation, accusing the administration of a cover-up after officials blamed a staffer for posting the video.

    According to The Hill, Harris wrote on X that “no one believes this cover-up from the White House, especially since they originally defended the post,” adding that the incident only reinforced what the public already knows about Trump’s beliefs.

    The White House previously told The Hill that a staffer had “erroneously made the post,” a claim that followed initial public defense of the video by press secretary Karoline Leavitt, who described it as an “internet meme” related to The Lion King.

    The explanation did little to quiet criticism.

    Jeffries Calls Video ‘Intentional,’ Urges GOP Leaders to Act

    House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries went further, arguing that the video was posted deliberately and demanding that Republican leadership denounce the president.

    In an Instagram post and accompanying video cited by The Hill, Jeffries called on Senate Majority Leader John Thune and House Speaker Mike Johnson to take a stand, warning that continued silence amounted to complicity.

    “This disgusting video, posted by the so-called president, was done intentionally,” Jeffries said, adding, “F— Donald Trump and his vile, racist, and malignant behavior.” He praised the Obamas as “brilliant, caring and patriotic Americans” while labeling Trump a “serial fraudster.”

    Jeffries also condemned Republican lawmakers who continued to support Trump, writing that “every Republican sycophant who continues to stand by their cult leader should be run out of office.”

    Bipartisan Condemnation and Trump’s Defense

    Despite Jeffries’ accusations, some Republicans joined Democrats in condemning the video. Senator Tim Scott, the only Black Republican in the Senate and a close Trump ally, described the depiction of the Obamas as “the most racist thing I’ve seen out of this White House” and called for its removal. The post was scrubbed from Truth Social roughly two hours later.

    Trump later confirmed aboard Air Force One that he spoke with Scott, claiming he had only seen the beginning of the video and thought “it was fine.” He said he “of course” condemned the offensive imagery but insisted he did not make a mistake in having the video posted.

    Other Republicans, including Representatives Mike Lawler and Brian Fitzpatrick, as well as Senators Susan Collins and Roger Wicker, also raised concerns.

    Silence as Strategy

    As criticism mounted, the Obamas’ refusal to engage became a statement of its own. Journalist Ahmed Hussein observed on X that rather than being “dragged into Trump’s provocation,” Obama “chose dignity over distraction,” redirecting the moment toward unity and leadership.

    What remains unresolved is whether the staffer blamed for posting the video will face any disciplinary action. For now, the administration has offered no further clarification.

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  • Trump shares racist video depicting Obamas as apes

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    Editor’s note: This story contains offensive imagery.

    Washington — President Trump posted to social media late Thursday an election-conspiracy video that includes racist footage depicting former President Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama as apes.

    The video, which is just over a minute long, promotes false claims that the 2020 presidential election was rigged against Mr. Trump. Toward the end of the video is a roughly two-second clip that shows the Obamas’ heads edited onto the bodies of primates, with the song “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” playing.

    Mr. Trump shared the video to his Truth Social account at 11:44 p.m. Thursday. 

    Obama was the nation’s first Black president and Michelle Obama was the first Black first lady. Mr. Trump has a history of sharing disparaging and racist memes about the Obamas. The president also amplified for years a conspiracy theory that Obama was born in Kenya and therefore ineligible to serve as president. Amid pressure to disavow the so-called “birther” claim, Mr. Trump finally said during the 2016 presidential campaign that “President Obama was born in the United States. Period.”

    There has been no reaction from the Obamas, and for now they are not commenting, a spokeswoman said. 

    White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said, “This is from an internet meme video depicting President Trump as the King of the Jungle and Democrats as characters from the Lion King. Please stop the fake outrage and report on something today that actually matters to the American public.” 

    Image from a video reposted by President Trump on Truth Social.

    @realDonaldTrump


    The original video that Leavitt referenced was shared on X last October by the user @xerias_x, who declared, “President Trump: King of the Jungle.” The 55-second-long video appears to be generated by AI and opens with Obama and Michelle Obama’s heads superimposed onto apes’ bodies.

    The original video depicts numerous other Democrats as animals, including former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as a warthog, New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as a donkey and Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer as a zebra. Former President Joe Biden also appears as a primate, and former Vice President Kamala Harris is pictured as a turtle. 

    Mr. Trump is portrayed in the video as a lion.

    The Obamas are the only Democrats in the clip shared by the president on Truth Social on Thursday. 

    South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, a Republican, denounced the footage and urged Mr. Trump to remove the video. 

    “Praying it was fake because it’s the most racist thing I’ve seen out of this White House,” the senator said in a social media post. Scott is the longest-serving Black senator in U.S. history and chairs the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

    Gov. Gavin Newsom, a California Democrat who frequently spars with the president, denounced the video shared by Mr. Trump late Thursday.

    “Disgusting behavior by the President. Every single Republican must denounce this. Now,” his press office wrote on social media.

    The president has continued to claim, despite extensive evidence to the contrary, that the 2020 presidential election was rife with fraud and that he, not Biden, was the winner. But dozens of lawsuits filed by his campaign and Republican allies seeking to overturn the results in key battleground states were dismissed by federal judges. Bill Barr, who served as attorney general during Mr. Trump’s first term, said the Justice Department did not uncover evidence of widespread fraud that would’ve changed the outcome of the 2020 election.

    The video shared by Mr. Trump makes unfounded allegations about voting machines from Dominion Voting Systems, a voting technology company. The claims were raised by some of the president’s allies in the wake of the 2020 election and led to defamation lawsuits by the company.

    Dominion argued in suits against Fox News and Newsmax that the networks defamed it by broadcasting unfounded allegations that Dominion had rigged the election against Mr. Trump and its software manipulated vote counts. The voting company also sued Rudy Giuliani, the former New York City mayor, for repeatedly peddling false claims about the 2020 election in interviews.

    Fox News agreed in 2023 to pay Dominion $787.5 million as part of a settlement to resolve the defamation case and Newmax agreed to pay the voting company $67 million last August. Giuliani and Dominion reached a settlement last September, though the terms are confidential.

    Former special counsel Jack Smith told House investigators in December that Giuliani “disavowed a number of the claims” he made publicly about the integrity of the 2020 election in an interview with his team. Smith oversaw the prosecution of Mr. Trump related to his alleged effort to subvert the transfer of power after the 2020 election. The president had denied wrongdoing and the case was dropped after he won a second term in November 2024.

    Ed O’Keefe

    contributed to this report.

    In:

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  • Mark Zuckerberg’s nonprofit cuts ties with the immigration advocacy group he co-founded

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    Behold Mark Zuckerberg: man of principle. Witness the Meta CEO’s dedication to the most high-minded of causes: “currying favor with whoever’s in charge.” In 2013, when Barack Obama was president, Zuckerberg co-founded FWD.us, a pro-immigration advocacy group. For years, he vocally supported providing paths to citizenship for “the most talented and hardest-working people, no matter where they were born.” Now, in 2025, with Donald Trump back in power and pushing draconian immigration policies, Zuckerberg’s philanthropy organization has officially cut ties with the group. Who says Big Tech executives don’t stand for anything?

    On Friday, Bloomberg reported on the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI) severing its ties with FWD.us. Zuckerberg’s group provided no funding to the advocacy group for the first time this year. Up to that point, over half of the roughly $400 million donated to the nonprofit since 2013 had come from CZI.

    In addition, CZI’s chief of staff, Jordan Fox, resigned from the FWD.us board. No one else at CZI will fill the vacant slot, another first for the pro-immigration and justice reform advocacy group.

    In a statement to Engadget, a spokesperson for CZI said the change had been in the works for several years. “Nearly five years ago, we shared that we were focusing on our core work in science, education, and supporting our local communities,” the spokesperson said. “As part of that transition, we committed foundational funding to FWD.us to continue their bipartisan work. We have fulfilled that financial commitment and wound down our social advocacy funding.” She added that the couple’s Biohub initiative is currently their “primary philanthropy.”

    Mark Zuckerberg listens attentively to Stephen Miller at Trump’s January inauguration (BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI via Getty Images)

    In late 2024, Zuckerberg met with Trump adviser Stephen Miller, who reacts to brown-skinned humans being sent to foreign gulags the way my dog responds to a juicy steak. Among other topics during the exchange, Miller reportedly questioned Zuckerberg’s ties to FWD.us.

    Apparently, his words resonated with Zuckerberg’s principles. In January, before Trump was sworn in for his second term, Meta unleashed an overhaul that reads like a Miller wishlist. The company ended its diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs. That same month, it ditched third-party fact-checkers, calling them “too politically biased.” It also changed its policies to allow for “insulting language” on topics of immigration and LGBTQ+ issues. The company even added Trump backer Dana White to its board.

    It fits a broader pattern of Big Tech bending the knee to Trump.

    “We’re in the middle of a pretty rapidly changing policy and regulatory landscape that views any policy that might advantage any one group of people over another as something that is unlawful,” Zuckerberg told the New York Times in January. “Because of that, we and every other institution out there are going to need to adjust.”

    “We now have a US administration that is proud of our leading companies, prioritizes American technology winning and that will defend our values and interests abroad,” Zuckerberg said in a January investor call. “I am optimistic about the progress and innovation that this can unlock, so this is going to be a big year.”

    What a big year indeed.

    NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA - DECEMBER 5: U.S. Chief Border Patrol Agent, Gregory Bovino and other agents conduct an immigration enforcement operation in a neighborhood on December 5, 2025 in New Orleans, Louisiana This comes on the third day of the operation in Louisiana, 'Catahoula Crunch,' launched by the Department of Homeland Security as a part of an immigration crackdown on undocumented immigrants in the United States. (Photo by Ryan Murphy/Getty Images)

    US Chief Border Patrol Agent, Gregory Bovino and masked ICE agents in New Orleans (Ryan Murphy via Getty Images)

    Now witness the contrasting words of one of Zuckerberg’s chief rivals in Silicon Valley. “When you meet these [immigrant] children who are really talented, and they’ve grown up in America, and they really don’t know any other country besides that, but they don’t have the opportunities that we all enjoy, it’s really heartbreaking, right?” the tech executive said. “That seems like it’s one of the biggest civil rights issues of our time.”

    That “rival,” of course, was Obama-era Mark Zuckerberg in 2013.

    Despite the funding setback, thanks to our principled hero, FWD.us will press forward. “We’re thankful to our donors, past and present, and so grateful to the many new donors who have stepped up in the past few years — and particularly the influx of new supporters we have seen this year,” FWD.us President Todd Schulte said in a statement. “This allows us to fight for immigrants under attack today and to build a better approach to immigration and criminal justice reform for many, many years to come.”

    Update, December 19, 2025, 1:19PM PT: This story was updated to include a statement from a spokesperson for the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative.

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  • Michelle Obama Remembers Rob and Michele Reiner: “Decent, Courageous People”

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    Barack and Michelle Obama had plans to see their good friends Rob and Michele Reiner on December 14, the day that the When Harry Met Sally director and his wife were brutally murdered in their Brentwood home. The former First Lady and current author recently recalled learning the tragic news on Jimmy Kimmel Live! “We’ve known them for many, many years, and we were supposed to be seeing them that night. Last night. And we got the news,” she said. “Let me just say this — unlike some people — Rob and Michele Reiner are some of the most decent, courageous people you ever want to know.”

    “They are neither deranged nor insane,” she continued—referring to President Donald Trump’s snide message about the murder on Truth Social, in which he claimed that the director suffered from a “crippling, massive, incurable mental illness known as Trump Derangement Syndrome”.

    “What they have always been are passionate people, in a time when there’s not a lot of courage going on,” the former first lady continued. “They were the kind of people who were ready to put their actions behind what they cared about. And they cared about their family. And they cared about this country. They cared about their families, about this country, about justice and fairness. That’s the truth, I know them well.” She added, “And they cared about fairness and equity. And that is the truth. I do know them.”

    Barack also reacted to the deaths of the Reiners, posting a message on X expressing his solidarity and recalling the importance of Rob Reiner’s work in the film and television industry: “Michelle and I are heartbroken by the tragic passing of Rob Reiner and his beloved wife, Michele. Rob’s achievements in film and television gave us some of our most cherished stories on screen.”

    An outspoken opponent of Donald Trump, Reiner had recently granted an interview to Ali Velshi, warning against current political drift. “Make no mistake; we have a year before this country becomes a full-on autocracy, and democracy completely leaves us,” he declared at the time, deeming the political climate under the second term of the 47th American president to be “worthy of the McCarthy era.”

    Nick Reiner, Rob and Michele’s 32-year-old son, was arrested in the murder of his parents and is being represented by famed defense attorney Alan Jackson, who has represented everyone from Harvey Weinstein to Karen Read. Charged on Tuesday December 16 with two counts of first degree murder, Reiner faces the death penalty if convicted, according to the Los Angeles District Attorney.

    Rob and Nick co-wrote and directed the film Being Charlie, which was inspired by Nick’s history of addiction and resulting complicated relationships with his parents.

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  • FACT FOCUS: Trump blames Biden for the agricultural trade deficit. It’s not that simple

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    As President Donald Trump announced a $12 billion farm aid package this week to help U.S. farmers hurt by tariffs, he placed responsibility for the U.S. agricultural trade deficit on former President Joe Biden.

    But in casting blame elsewhere, he is ignoring other factors, including his own role. Currently, farmers — especially those that produce soybeans and sorghum — have had a hard time selling their crops while getting hit by increasing costs after Trump raised tariffs on China earlier this year as part of a broader trade war that has contributed to the deficit.

    Experts say that it is a massive oversimplification to blame any one administration or policy.

    Here’s a closer look at the facts.

    CLAIM: There was an agricultural trade surplus during Trump’s first term that former Biden turned into an agricultural trade deficit.

    THE FACTS: This is both misleading and missing context. It is true that there was an agricultural trade surplus when Trump entered the White House in 2017, which has since become a significant deficit. However, according to experts, this can be attributed to actions taken by both administrations, as well as factors outside their control such as the COVID-19 pandemic.

    “I don’t want to let U.S. trade policy off the hook here, but it’s one element of a broader, more complicated kind of story,” said Cullen Hendrix, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics.

    Still, Trump held Biden solely responsible for the agricultural trade deficit at a White House roundtable Monday where he announced the farm aid package.

    “In my first term, we had an agricultural trade surplus by a lot,” the president said, misrepresenting the numbers. “We had a big surplus. We knew we were exporting American agricultural products all over the world, making a net profit and, in many cases, a very substantial profit. He came in and ruined it. Biden turned that surplus into a gaping agricultural deficit that continues to this day.”

    What the numbers show

    The yearly agricultural trade balance, which reflects the amount of those goods the U.S. has exported versus the amount it has imported, had been positive for nearly 60 years until 2019 during Trump’s first term.

    According to data from the Department of Agriculture, it stood at a surplus of approximately $16.3 billion at the end of 2016 and fell the next year, Trump’s first as president, to one of about $13.66 billion. The balance further decreased over the next two years, ultimately turning into a deficit of about $481 million. It returned to a surplus in 2020 at about $3.39 billion, which further increased in 2021 — the year Biden entered the White House. In 2022, it transitioned back to a deficit that grew to approximately $36.45 billion by the end of 2024. As of August, the latest data available, there was an agricultural trade deficit of about $36.3 billion.

    The yearslong trade war between the U.S. and China is partly to blame for the agricultural deficit, experts say. Trump fired the first shot in January 2018, with 30% tariffs on imported solar panels, which led to additional tariffs and import curbs from both sides that continued to a certain extent under Biden.

    The countries signed a Phase One trade deal in January 2020 through which China committed to buying an additional $200 billion of U.S. goods and services over the next two years. However, the Peterson Institute later found China had bought essentially none of the goods promised.

    What is the current situation?

    Trump has instituted even more tariffs on Chinese imports since returning to the White House. In response, China has retaliated with tariffs and import curbs on U.S. goods, including key farm products.

    The White House said in October, after Trump met with Chinese leader Xi Jinping in South Korea, that Beijing had promised to buy at least 12 million metric tons of U.S. soybeans by the end of the calendar year, plus 25 million metric tons a year in each of the next three years. China has purchased more than 2.8 million metric tons of soybeans since Trump announced the agreement, according to AP reporting. That’s only about one quarter of what administration officials said China had promised, but Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has said China is on track to meet its goal by the end of February, which is two months later than the White House originally promised.

    “China’s been refusing large U.S. purchases in favor of other trade partners,” said Hendrix. “This is a lamentable, but kind of predictable, consequence of the United States engaging in this trade war and weaponizing trade policy. Our trade partners are going to seek to diversify both for self-insurance — we’re talking about food, we’re talking about survival here — and to punish the U.S. for kind of changing the rules of the game so unilaterally.”

    But there are myriad other factors that have contributed to the current deficit, experts say. For example, high purchasing power enabled by a strong U.S. dollar and a desire by U.S. consumers to buy high-value goods that aren’t produced domestically. A stronger dollar also decreases demand for U.S. exports, as this makes it more difficult for other countries to buy those products.

    In addition, Brazil and Argentina have begun exporting soy, corn and beef, competing directly with U.S. exports and lowering prices for such goods. Major world events of which the U.S. government has little or indirect control, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, climate variability and the Russia-Ukraine war, have also contributed.

    “The tariffs can exacerbate the situation, but generally the fact that you may have a deficit or a surplus is really more dependent on global prices,” said Joseph Glauber, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute who served as the Department of Agriculture’s chief economist from 2008 to 2014 under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama.

    Asked whether Trump blames solely Biden for the agricultural trade deficit, White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly said that “farmers suffered for years under Joe Biden,” but that Trump is committed to “helping our agriculture industry by negotiating new trade deals to open new export markets for our farmers and boosting the farm safety net for the first time in a decade.”

    ___

    Find AP Fact Checks here: https://apnews.com/APFactCheck.

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  • Shedeur Sanders is the ‘most powerful Black man’ since Obama took office, NBA champ says

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    NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!

    NBA champion Kendrick Perkins fired off a scorching hot take about Cleveland Browns rookie Shedeur Sanders as the quarterback gets ready to make the second start of his NFL career.

    Perkins, an analyst on ESPN who has had his share of fiery opinions before, compared Sanders to former President Barack Obama in a recent podcast appearance.

    CLICK HERE FOR MORE SPORTS COVERAGE ON FOXNEWS.COM

    Cleveland Browns quarterback Shedeur Sanders (12) is all smiles as he chats on the sideline during the second half of an NFL football game at Huntington Bank Field, Nov. 16, 2025, in Cleveland, Ohio. (Jeff Lange/USA Today Network via Imagn Images)

    “You ready for this take? Shedeur Sanders is the most powerful Black man since 2009. You know what happened in 2009? That’s when President Obama got elected into office. He’s the most powerful Black man since 2009,” Perkins said on “LGND TLK.”

    “Here’s why I say that. You said you were sitting there watching the game in your house, and what you did? You ran with the TV. … What were you doing? You were cheering like a motherf—er. When Shedeur Sanders is on the field, this is the only time that I see what Black people come together as one, drop all the swords. There’s no Black people beefing on nothing across … Everybody rooting for Shedeur Sanders.

    EX-NFL STAR PRAISES SHEDEUR SANDERS FOR ‘MENTAL TOUGHNESS’ TO BOUNCE BACK FROM POOR DEBUT TO BEAT RAIDERS

    Shedeur Sanders enters Allegiant Stadium

    Cleveland Browns quarterback Shedeur Sanders arrives before the game against the Las Vegas Raiders at Allegiant Stadium on Nov. 23, 2025. (Kirby Lee/Imagn Images)

    “And when I say powerful, there’s two sides of it. He’s bringing the whole Black community together. I ain’t ran across one Black person that has said one bad thing about Shedeur. Not one because he has the balance. He has the balance of, ‘I’m arrogant but I’m humble too.’ And he’s having fun with this s—.  … He’s the most powerful Black man in sports. You know, what, f— Black man, he’s the most powerful player in sports. Because even when he’s not playing, he’s still getting talked about. “

    Sanders has only appeared in two NFL games this season. The Browns selected him in the fifth round of the draft back in the spring and he had to work his way up to become the starter.

    The former Colorado standout has shown how poised he is and how much confidence he has in his abilities as a football player. His debut against the Baltimore Ravens went much differently than the win over the Las Vegas Raiders.

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    The Browns gave him the nod for Week 13 against the San Francisco 49ers.

    Follow Fox News Digital’s sports coverage on X and subscribe to the Fox News Sports Huddle newsletter.

    Ryan Gaydos is a senior editor for Fox News Digital.

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  • AOC preparing “most powerful” presidential bid “since Obama”—Fox News host

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    Fox News host Laura Ingraham has warned Republicans that U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York—also known by her initials, AOC—is “building the most powerful political operation we’ve seen since Obama,” referring to the former Democratic President Barack Obama.

    In a post on X, Ingraham wrote that the 36-year-old congresswoman for New York’s 14th congressional district “is positioning herself to run for president in 2028.” 

    To support her statement, the journalist, author and host shared a video of Ocasio-Cortez talking about her campaign raising enough money to donate 1,600 turkeys for families in the Bronx this Thanksgiving.

    Why It Matters

    There is still a lot of speculation over who will run in the first presidential election without President Donald Trump—that is, unless he decides to flaunt the rules and make a bid for a third term, an idea which he has teased in the past. The Democratic Party is still working out a new path after the painful defeat last November, with the race wide-open. 

    California Governor Gavin Newsom has been rumored to potentially run for the Democratic primary, as well as former Vice President Kamala Harris, who recently said she was “not done” with politics. Ocasio-Cortez, a progressive star of the Democratic Party, could potentially run, as she is now over the minimum age of 35 required to be U.S. president.

    What To Know

    Ingraham is not the first to mention that Ocasio-Cortez might be looking into running for president in 2028. In September, Axios reported that “people familiar with her operation” said she was positioning herself to run for either the presidency or the U.S. Senate in 2028.

    According to the news site, Ocasio-Cortez has spent millions this year on social media to grow her supporters’ base and find potential donors to expand her grassroots fundraising pot. Across all social media platforms, the young Democrat now counts over 36.7 million followers.

    A recent analysis by ABC News also identified Ocasio-Cortez among the Democrats who have been traveling to key battleground states this year, suggesting they might be preparing the ground for a presidential bid. The list included Harris, Newsom and California Representative Ro Khanna.

    Ocasio-Cortez visited Arizona in March as part of the Fighting Oligarchy tour with independent Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont. In the same month, she also visited Nevada.

    A recent poll assuming hypothetical races between Newsom and Vice President JD Vance and Ocasio-Cortez put the California governor ahead with 36 percent of the vote against the vice president and the New York congresswoman tied at 34 percent each.

    Vance is currently the favorite in polling for the Republican Party candidate, but others are likely to run—including, potentially, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, and Texas Senator Ted Cruz.

    Newsweek contacted Ocasio-Cortez’s office via email on Sunday, outside of standard working hours, for comment.

    What People Are Saying

    Fox News host Laura Ingraham wrote on X on Sunday: “AOC is positioning herself to run for president in 2028. Republicans, as you fight amongst yourselves, she’s building the most powerful political operation we’ve seen since Obama.”

    Asked if she would make a formidable candidate in 2028, Senator Bernie Sanders told Axios in a recent interview: “I think she would. I think other people would as well. That’s her decision to make.”

    Ari Rabin-Havt, a longtime Sanders aide, told Axios: “She has a supporter base that, in many ways, has a larger potential width than Bernie’s. She has been in the glare of the spotlight from day one and has the national campaigning experience a lot of other potential candidates are now trying to get.

    “It would be the height of arrogance to assume she couldn’t win the 2028 nomination.”

    Political commentator Chris Cillizza wrote in his newsletter that “AOC would be INSANE not to run for president in 2028.”

    What Happens Next

    Ocasio-Cortez is still in the midst of deciding what her political future will be. 

    Her decision is likely to influence the future of her entire party, which currently appears conflicted between taking the middle ground or chasing the success obtained by progressive candidates such as Zohran Mamdani, who recently won New York City’s mayoral election.

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  • Fugees rapper Pras Michel receives 14-year sentence for illegal contributions tied to Obama campaign

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    Grammy-winning rapper Prakazrel “Pras” Michel of the Fugees was sentenced on Thursday to 14 years in prison for a case in which he was convicted of illegally funneling millions of dollars in foreign contributions to former President Barack Obama’s 2012 reelection campaign. 

    Michel, 52, declined to address the court before U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly sentenced him.

    In April 2023, a federal jury convicted Michel of 10 counts, including conspiracy and acting as an unregistered agent of a foreign government. The trial in Washington, D.C., included testimony from actor Leonardo DiCaprio and former Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

    Justice Department prosecutors said federal sentencing guidelines recommended a life sentence for Michel, whom they said “betrayed his country for money” and “lied unapologetically and unrelentingly to carry out his schemes.”

    “His sentence should reflect the breadth and depth of his crimes, his indifference to the risks to his country, and the magnitude of his greed,” they wrote.

    Defense attorney Peter Zeidenberg said his client’s 14-year sentence is “completely disproportionate to the offense.” Michel will appeal his conviction and sentence, according to his lawyer.

    Zeidenberg had recommended a three-year prison sentence. A life sentence would be an “absurdly high” punishment for Michel, given that it is typically reserved for deadly terrorists and drug cartel leaders, Michel’s attorneys said in a court filing.

    “The Government’s position is one that would cause Inspector Javert to recoil and, if anything, simply illustrates just how easily the Guidelines can be manipulated to produce absurd results, and how poorly equipped they are, at least on this occasion, to determine a fair and just sentence,” they wrote.

    File photo: Pras Michel, former member of the Fugees, center, exits federal court in Washington, D.C., on April 3, 2023. 

    Graeme Sloan/Bloomberg via Getty Images


    Michel, a Brooklyn native whose parents immigrated to the U.S. from Haiti, was a founding member of the Fugees along with childhood friends Lauryn Hill and Wyclef Jean. Their hip-hop band won two Grammy Awards and sold tens of millions of albums.

    Michel obtained more than $120 million from Malaysian billionaire Low Taek Jho — also known as Jho Low — and steered some of that money through straw donors to Obama’s campaign.

    Michel said during trial that he viewed Low’s payments as “free money,” and accepted the millions over the course of nine months to help Low secure a photo op with Obama. He said under oath at the time that no one told him such payments toward political donations could have been unlawful or violations of campaign finance laws.  

    The Justice Department also charged Michel with serving as an unregistered foreign agent for China, alleging that in 2017 he sought to sway the Trump administration to halt its probe into Low and to extradite a Chinese government target living in the U.S. That individual, dissident Miles Guo, was charged in New York in a billion-dollar fraud case and is still in custody.

    Low, who has lived in China, was one of the primary financiers of “The Wolf of Wall Street,” a movie starring DiCaprio. Low is a fugitive but has maintained his innocence.

    “Low’s motivation for giving Mr. Michel money to donate was not so that he could achieve some policy objective. Instead, Low simply wanted to obtain a photograph with himself and then-President Obama,” Michel’s attorneys wrote.

    In August 2024, the judge rejected Michel’s request for a new trial based in part on his defense attorney’s use of a generative artificial intelligence program during his closing of the trial’s arguments. The judges said that and other trial errors didn’t amount to a serious miscarriage of justice.

    Robert Legare

    contributed to this report.

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  • Former White House Situation Room senior director shares what happens in the space

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    What’s it like inside the secretive White House Situation Room, typically used for communicating sensitive information? Larry Pfeiffer, former senior director of the Situation Room, joins CBS News to share behind-the-scenes details.

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  • Obama & Biden’s Relationship in ‘Really Bad’ Place After Joe’s Son’s ‘Pissed Off’ Rant Over Barack’s Treatment of His Dad

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    Barack Obama & Joe Biden’s Relationship After Trump Election Loss




























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  • Naturalized US citizens thought they were safe. Trump’s immigration policies are shaking that belief

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    NEW YORK (AP) — When he first came to the United States after escaping civil war in Sierra Leone and spending almost a decade in a refugee camp, Dauda Sesay had no idea he could become a citizen. But he was told that if he followed the rules and stayed out of trouble, after some years he could apply. As a U.S. citizen, he would have protection.

    It’s what made him decide to apply: the premise — and the promise — that when he became a naturalized American citizen, it would create a bond between him and his new home. He would have rights as well as responsibilities, like voting, that, as he was making a commitment to the country, the country was making one to him.

    “When I raised my hand and took the oath of allegiance, I did believe that moment the promise that I belonged,” said Sesay, 48, who first arrived in Louisiana more than 15 years ago and now works as an advocate for refugees and their integration into American society.

    But in recent months, as President Donald Trump reshapes immigration and the country’s relationship with immigrants, that belief has been shaken for Sesay and other naturalized citizens. There’s now fear that the push to drastically increase deportations and shift who can claim America as home, through things like trying to end birthright citizenship, is having a ripple effect.

    Stay up to date with the news and the best of AP by following our WhatsApp channel.


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    What they thought was the bedrock protection of naturalization now feels more like quicksand.

    Illinois State Police stand guard as people including members of the Coalition for Spiritual and Public Leadership (CSPL) gather outside a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Broadview, Ill., Saturday, Oct. 11, 2025. (AP Photo/Adam Gray, File)

    Illinois State Police stand guard as people including members of the Coalition for Spiritual and Public Leadership (CSPL) gather outside a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Broadview, Ill., Saturday, Oct. 11, 2025. (AP Photo/Adam Gray, File)

    What happens if they leave?

    Some are worried that if they leave the country, they will have difficulties when trying to return, fearful because of accounts of naturalized citizens being questioned or detained by U.S. border agents. They wonder: Do they need to lock down their phones to protect their privacy? Others are hesitant about moving around within the country, after stories like that of a U.S. citizen accused of being here illegally and detained even after his mother produced his birth certificate.

    There has been no evidence of an uptick in denaturalizations so far in this Trump administration. Yet that hasn’t assuaged some. Sesay said he doesn’t travel domestically anymore without his passport, despite having a REAL ID with its federally mandated, stringent identity requirements.

    Immigration enforcement roundups, often conducted by masked, unidentifiable federal agents in places including Chicago and New York City, have at times included American citizens in their dragnets. One U.S. citizen who says he was detained by immigration agents twice has filed a federal lawsuit.

    Adding to the worries, the Justice Department issued a memo this summer saying it would ramp up efforts to denaturalize immigrants who’ve committed crimes or are deemed to present a national security risk. At one point during the summer, Trump threatened the citizenship of Zohran Mamdani, the 34-year-old democratic socialist mayor-elect of New York City, who naturalized as a young adult.

    The atmosphere makes some worried to speak about it publicly, for fear of drawing negative attention to themselves. Requests for comment through several community organizations and other connections found no takers willing to go on the record other than Sesay.

    In New Mexico, state Sen. Cindy Nava says she’s familiar with the fear, having grown up undocumented before getting DACA — Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, the Obama-era program that protected people brought to the U.S. as children from being deported — and gaining citizenship through her marriage. But she hadn’t expected to see so much fear among naturalized citizens.

    “I had never seen those folks be afraid … now the folks that I know that were not afraid before, now they are uncertain of what their status holds in terms of a safety net for them,” Nava said.

    What citizenship has meant, and who was included, has expanded and contracted over the course of American history, said Stephen Kantrowitz, professor of history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He said while the word “citizen” is in the original Constitution, it is not defined.

    “When the Constitution is written, nobody knows what citizenship means,” he said. “It’s a term of art, it comes out of the French revolutionary tradition. It sort of suggests an equality of the members of a political community, and it has some implications for the right to be a member of that political community. But it is … so undefined.”

    Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents escort a detained immigrant into an elevator after he exited an immigration courtroom, Tuesday, June 17, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo/Olga Fedorova, File)

    Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents escort a detained immigrant into an elevator after he exited an immigration courtroom, Tuesday, June 17, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo/Olga Fedorova, File)

    American immigration and its obstacles

    The first naturalization law passed in 1790 by the new country’s Congress said citizenship was for any “free white person” of good character. Those of African descent or nativity were added as a specific category to federal immigration law after the ravages of the Civil War in the 19th century, which was also when the 14th Amendment was added to the Constitution to establish birthright citizenship.

    In the last years of the 19th century and into the 20th century, laws were put on the books limiting immigration and, by extension, naturalization. The Immigration Act of 1924 effectively barred people from Asia because they were ineligible for naturalization, being neither white nor Black. That didn’t change until 1952, when an immigration law removed racial restrictions on who could be naturalized. The 1965 Immigration and Naturalization Act replaced the previous immigration system with one that portioned out visas equally among nations.

    American history also includes times when those who had citizenship had it taken away, like after the 1923 Supreme Court ruling in U.S. vs. Bhagat Singh Thind. That ruling said that Indians couldn’t be naturalized because they did not qualify as white and led to several dozen denaturalizations. At other times, it was ignored, as in World War II, when Japanese Americans were forced into internment camps.

    “Political power will sometimes simply decide that a group of people, or a person or a family isn’t entitled to citizenship,” Kantrowitz said.

    In this moment, Sesay says, it feels like betrayal.

    “The United States of America — that’s what I took that oath of allegiance, that’s what I make commitment to,” Sesay said. “Now, inside my home country, and I’m seeing a shift. … Honestly, that is not the America I believe in when I put my hand over my heart.”

    ___

    This story has been corrected to reflect that Dauda Sesay is 48 years old, not 44.

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  • From gowns to pantsuits, Michelle Obama explains her iconic fashion picks in a new book, ‘The Look’

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    WASHINGTON (AP) — On any day during her eight years as first lady of the United States, Michelle Obama said she could go from giving a speech to meeting with a counterpart from another country to digging in her vegetable garden with groups of schoolchildren.

    And her clothes had to be ready for that. There was too much else to do, including raising daughters Sasha and Malia, and she said she did not have time to obsess over what she was wearing.

    “I was concerned about, ‘Can I hug somebody in it? Will it get dirty?’” she said Wednesday night during a moderated conversation about her style choices dating to growing up on the South Side of Chicago to when she found herself in the national spotlight as the first Black woman to be first lady. “I was the kind of first lady that there was no telling what I would do.”

    Obama would become one of the most-watched women in the world, for what she said and did, but also for what she wore. She chronicled her fashion, hair and makeup journey in her newest book, “The Look,” written with her longtime stylist Meredith Koop and published earlier this month.

    The sold-out conversation was taped as part of “IMO: THE LOOK,” a special, six-part companion series to the IMO podcast she hosts with her brother, Craig Robinson.

    She wanted her clothes to be welcoming as well as versatile.

    “The thing about clothes that I find is that they can welcome people in or they can keep people away, and if you’re so put together and so precious and things are so crisp and the pin is so big, you know, it can just tell people, ‘Don’t touch me,’” she said.

    She said she would not wear white to events with rope lines in case someone wanted a hug.

    “I’m not going to push somebody away when they need something from me, and I’m not going to let the clothes get in the way of that,” Obama said.

    Here’s what she said about a few of her notable fashion choices:

    The gown for Obama’s first inauguration

    President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama dance at the Obama Home States Inaugural Ball in Washington, Jan. 20, 2009. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall, File)

    The white, one-shoulder chiffon gown was designed by Jason Wu, then an unknown 26-year-old who was born in Taiwan. But when she stepped out at the inaugural ball wearing the gown, the moment changed Wu’s life. That was by design, she said.

    “We were beginning to realize everything we did sent a message,” Obama said, speaking of herself and her husband, former President Barack Obama. “So that’s what we were trying to do with the choices we made, to change lives.”

    She would continue to help launch the careers of other up-and-coming designers by wearing their creations.

    Chain mail state dinner gown

    President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama wait at North Portico of the White House to greet Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi and his wife Agnese Landini, for a State Dinner, Oct. 18, 2016. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta, File)

    President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama wait at North Portico of the White House to greet Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi and his wife Agnese Landini, for a State Dinner, Oct. 18, 2016. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta, File)

    Obama wore the rose gold gown by Versace for the Obama administration’s final state dinner, for Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi in October 2016.

    “So that was a kind of a, ‘I don’t care’ dress,” she said of the shimmery, one-armed gown.

    “I put that on. I was like, ‘This is sexy.’ It’s the last one,” she said, meaning their final state dinner. “All of my choices, ultimately, are what is beautiful — and what looks beautiful on.”

    Pantsuit worn to Joe Biden’s inauguration

    Former President Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama arrive to attend the 59th Presidential Inauguration at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, Jan. 20, 2021, as Joe Biden was sworn in as the 46th president of the U.S. and Kamala Harris became the first woman vice president. (Jonathan Ernst/Pool Photo via AP, File)

    Former President Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama arrive to attend the 59th Presidential Inauguration at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, Jan. 20, 2021, as Joe Biden was sworn in as the 46th president of the U.S. and Kamala Harris became the first woman vice president. (Jonathan Ernst/Pool Photo via AP, File)

    “I was really in practical mode,” Obama said, explaining why she chose the maroon ensemble by Sergio Hudson with a flowing, floor-length coat that she wore unbuttoned, exposing the belt around her waist with a big, round gold-toned buckle. Her boots had a low heel.

    “The sitting president was trying to convince us that Jan. 6 was just a peaceful protest,” she said.

    The inauguration ceremony at the Capitol was held two weeks after the Jan. 6, 2021, riot there by supporters of President Donald Trump who had sought to overturn Biden’s victory.

    She said she had been thinking about the possibility of having to run if something else had happened that day.

    “I wanted to be able to move. I wanted to be ready,” she said. But she and her team “had no idea” the outfit “was going to break the internet,” she said.

    White House East Wing

    Obama also spoke about the East Wing, the traditional base of operations for first ladies that Trump last month tore down to make room for a ballroom he had long desired.

    Former first lady Michelle Obama speaks about her new book "The Look" during an event at Sixth and I, Wednesday, Nov. 12, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Allison Robbert)

    Former first lady Michelle Obama speaks about her new book “The Look” during an event at Sixth and I, Wednesday, Nov. 12, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Allison Robbert)

    Obama described the East Wing as a joyful place that she remembers as full of apples, children, puppies and laughter, in contrast to the West Wing, which dealt with “horrible things.” It was where she worked on various initiatives that ranged from combating childhood obesity to rallying the country around military families to encouraging developing countries to let girls go to school.

    She said she and her husband never thought of the White House as “our house.” They saw themselves more as caretakers, and there was work to do in the mansion.

    “But every president has the right to do what they want in that house, so that’s why we’ve got to be clear on who we let in,” Obama said.

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  • Obama and Biden’s relationship has deteriorated, ‘really bad’ since election: ABC reporter

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    NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!

    ABC News reporter Jonathan Karl said in a new interview that a recent incident is a perfect sign that former Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden are on the outs.

    Karl spoke to news personality and podcaster Katie Couric on her show last week about how Obama and Biden were spotted eating at Café Milano one night last month in Washington, D.C., to the point their security details had to make space for each other, yet Obama and his former vice president did not cross paths. 

    “They didn’t interact at all, they were in the same restaurant?” Couric asked in disbelief. “What’s their relationship like?”

    OBAMA WAS ‘NOT HAPPY’ WITH QUICK PELOSI ENDORSEMENT OF HARRIS, BOOK SAYS

    Former Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden. (Mark Makela/Getty Images)

    “Really bad. Really bad,” Karl replied on the Nov. 6 podcast. “Biden and the people around him very much blame Barack Obama for the effort to push Biden out of the campaign.” 

    Karl has been doing media rounds to promote his new book, “Retribution,” a behind-the-scenes account of the historic 2024 election.

    Karl went on to recall Hunter Biden was enraged at seeing Obama take his father by the arm and lead him off-stage at a fundraiser last summer, making then-President Biden appear feeble. At the time, Biden was still the presumptive 2024 Democratic nominee, and his allies were largely publicly dismissing concerns about his viability.

    “It’s not a good relationship. If they had wanted to see each other, they absolutely would have,” Karl said of the night he witnessed at the restaurant. The incident was covered in Politico last month.

    Karl noted further that Biden, like Kamala Harris, made several phone calls in order to secure support for Harris after Biden relinquished the nomination last year. 

    BIDEN AIDES BLAST HARRIS BOOK EXCERPTS, ADDING VP ‘WAS SIMPLY NOT GOOD AT THE JOB’: REPORT

    Joe Biden and Barack Obama

    The relationship between former presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden is reportedly not as friendly as it once was. (Paul J. Richards/AFP via Getty Images)

    “I was astounded to hear that the one person he did not call was Barack Obama, the person that really made it possible for him to be president by making him vice president,” Karl said. “He didn’t call him then. Obama did call, I learned, to talk to Biden. He didn’t take the call, and the two of them did not speak for weeks.”

    “So dysfunctional,” Couric said.

    Fox News Digital reached out to Biden and Obama’s offices and did not receive an immediate reply.

    CLICK HERE FOR MORE COVERAGE OF MEDIA AND CULTURE

    Presidents Obama and Biden

    Former President Barack Obama and President Joe Biden reportedly did not speak for weeks after Biden relinquished the Democratic Party nomination. (Getty Images)

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    Alexander Hall is an associate editor for Fox News Digital. Story tips can be sent to Alexander.hall@fox.com.

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