Obama and Trump Suddenly Look Very Friendly

One sign among many of fading resistance to Trump

Presidents Obama and Trump at President Carter’s funeral, via a social media post from C-Span’s Howard Mortman that got 5 million impressions on X.

If there’s an image that sticks out from the past week it is of President Trump and President Obama amiably chatting while seated next to each other at President Carter’s funeral.

“​​It did look very friendly, I must say. I didn’t realize it, how friendly it looked,” Trump said today.

Add Obama to the list of examples of powerful people who seem to be coming to terms with Trump, convincing themselves that he is best dealt with not as a mortal threat to the future of America as a constitutional republic, but rather as the president-elect.

Obama has ample company. A Washington Post cartoonist, Ann Telnaes, quit after the paper “killed” (she says) her cartoon depicting Post owner and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos alongside other media and tech executives (Mark Zuckerberg, Sam Altman) bowing down and giving money to Trump.

The same “women’s march” group that the New York Times claims mustered 470,000 people to a 2017 anti-Trump protest only has 40,000 signed up so far for a Saturday, January 18, 2025 event in Washington.

That event is sponsored by anti-Trump die-hards in the nonprofit sector such as the National Organization for Women, the Sierra Club, and Planned Parenthood.

The Republicans are also coming around. Trump’s choice for House Speaker, Mike Johnson, won the post on the first ballot after opponents changed their votes.

Trump-supported legislation “to require the Secretary of Homeland Security to take into custody aliens who have been charged in the United States with theft” moved ahead in the Senate on January 9 by a vote of 84 to 9, with the nine opponents including such bitter-enders as Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey of Massachusetts.

Even the New York Times decided its scoop that Jared Kushner had “raised an additional $1.5 billion from Middle East investors for his private equity company” wasn’t worth placement on the front page.

None of this is to say that Trump won’t encounter, eventually, some fierce opposition along the way. No honeymoon lasts forever. His initial nominee for attorney general, Matt Gaetz, withdrew. NPR is unremittingly hostile to Trump during the few minutes of the broadcasts that it pauses from slandering Israel. But given how thoroughly Trump was demonized during the campaign, what’s striking is the warmth with which he was greeted by Obama and the absence of energy among his opponents.

Part of what is driving the reconciliation may be fear of retribution. The New York Times reports on Trump calling Justice Alito to check a reference on a former Alito clerk, William Levi. William Levi is a grandson of Edward H. Levi, the president of the University of Chicago who was attorney general of the U.S. in President Ford’s administration. William Levi had worked for Attorney General Barr in the first Trump administration. The Times reports: “As Mr. Trump puts together his second administration, Mr. Barr is among a handful of prominent Republicans who are viewed with such suspicion that others associated with them are presumptively not to be given jobs in the administration, according to people familiar with the dynamic. Republicans in that category include Mr. Trump’s former secretary of state Mike Pompeo and his former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley. To be called a ‘Pompeo guy’ or a ‘Haley person’ is considered a kiss of death in Mr. Trump’s inner circle. Resistance to such people can usually be overcome only if Mr. Trump himself signs off on their hiring.”

Maybe Obama and Bezos and Zuckerberg don’t want “the kiss of death.” I’m closer to Pompeo and Haley on the policy substance than I am to their enemies, but just as analysis of the power dynamics in Washington, this is all fascinating and telling stuff. Regardless of the day’s market gyrations and Fed “independence,” anyone who thinks Jerome Powell isn’t watching carefully and drawing the appropriate conclusions may be in for a surprise. And not just the Fed—the foreign countries, too. As Prime Minister Netanyahu puts it ״יחד ננצח״, "Together we will win." Not that Obama and Trump are ideologically aligned or that, in some cynical way, they represent the ruling elites looking out for themselves in contrast to the ordinary people. No more than Jeff Bezos does. What Obama showed with his body language was that Trump, for all his flaws, having won a presidential election, deserves the respect due to the office of president of the United States. And while people may harbor reservations about character and quarrel or even strenuously object to policies or actions or nominations, the patriotic move at the moment is to wish the incoming president success.