A new book about the 2024 presidential campaign reveals one of the things then-President-elect Donald Trump and former President Barack Obama spoke about at the late President Jimmy Carter’s funeral in January.
Axios reported that the nugget of information appears in the book “2024: How Trump Retook the White House and the Democrats Lost America,” written by three reporters who covered the campaign for The Washington Post: Isaac Arnsdorf, Josh Dawsey, and Tyler Pager. Dawsey is now with The Wall Street Journal, and Pager is now with The New York Times.
Trump sat next to Obama at the National Cathedral at Carter’s funeral, and in the course of their friendly banter, the president-elect “invited him to play golf, enticing him with descriptions of Trump’s courses around the world,” the book says.
Vice President Kamala Harris appeared to look back in disgust as Trump and Obama talked to each other in the pew behind her.
Kamala Harris looks back at Trump, who is talking with Obama … ( Carter funeral ) pic.twitter.com/fnC3BqKmRO
— Howard Mortman (@HowardMortman) January 9, 2025
CNN’s Kaitlan Collins noted the friendly exchange between the two, during which both smiled and laughed. “These are just moments that you don’t see, hardly ever,” she said.
🚨NEW: Trump is seen talking with Barack Obama at Jimmy Carter’s state funeral.
“These are just moments that that you don’t see, hardly ever.” pic.twitter.com/SscWr8NCAP
— Western Lensman (@WesternLensman) January 9, 2025
Would you like to golf a round with Trump?
Forensic lip reader Jeremy Freeman was able to make out part of the conversation the two men had, according to the New York Post.
At one point, Trump told Obama, “I can’t talk, we have to find a quiet place sometime. This is a matter of importance, and we need to do this outside so that we can deal with it, certainly, today.”
Trump also leaned over to the 44th president and said, “I’ve pulled out of that. It’s the conditions. Can you imagine that?”
It was not clear what Trump was referring to, but he did withdraw the U.S. from both the Iran nuclear deal and the Paris Climate Agreement that the country had entered into under Obama’s leadership.
Fox News White House correspondent Peter Doocy asked Trump later in the day, following the Jan. 9 funeral, what he and Obama had spoken about.
The president-elect did not answer the question directly, but acknowledged, “It did look very friendly, I must say. I didn’t realize how friendly it looked.”
President-elect Trump on his cordial chat with President Obama:
“It did look very friendly, I must say … I said, ‘Boy, they look like two people like that each other.’ And we probably do… I don’t know, we just got along.”pic.twitter.com/y0i0uVqxRa
— The American Conservative (@amconmag) January 10, 2025
Trump noted that he later saw the interchange on Fox News and said, “Boy, they look like two people that like each other.
“And we probably do. We have little different philosophies, right? … I don’t know, we just got along.”
Trump went on to say that his experience was the same with “just about everybody,” apparently referring to the former presidents and vice presidents and their spouses attending the funeral. He pointed out they had all met together in a room before entering the sanctuary.
“We all got along very well,” Trump said.
Others who could be seen seated near Trump, besides his wife Melania, were then-Vice President Harris and her husband Doug Emhoff, former President Bill and Hillary Clinton, former President George and Laura Bush, former Vice President Mike and Karen Pence, former Vice President Dan and Marilyn Qualye, and former Vice President Al Gore.
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