After Years of Birtherism and False Claims of Wiretapping, Trump Now Tells CNN He Likes and ‘Respects’ Obama and His Wife

Michelle Obama is famous for coining the political adage, “When they go low, we go high.” Former President Donald Trump may have created a bizarro-world corollary that states “After years of going low, I will now go high only when I need to pivot to a new charm offensive that no one will buy.” Or something.

On the very evening when former President Barack Obama and wife Michelle will each give a speech to an adoring DNC crowd, Trump shared remarkably positive thoughts about the two during a brief interview with CNN Reporter Kristen Holmes.

Holmes caught up with Trump on his way to a rally in Howell, Michigan, and told Kaitlan Collins she asked Trump for “essentially a rebuttal of the speech. This is what he said, almost a complete turnaround of what we have heard him say about former President Obama before.”

“I like him, I think he’s a nice gentleman,” Trump replied before dinging Obama on policy. “He was very, very weak on trade. If you take a look at what happened to our country, trade was it was a disaster. Take a look at Japan, take a look at China. Take a look at what happened with some of these countries and what they did.”

“But I happen to like him,” Trump concluded. “I respect him, and I respect his wife.”

Now, this may surprise anyone who has tracked the hundreds of insults and attacks that Trump has levied against the man he replaced in the White House in January 2017. Trump insisted on referring to Barack Hussein Obama in an apparent effort to otherize the former president, alleged that he was not actually born in the United States and therefore was ineligible to serve as Commander in Chief, and even falsely claimed that Obama had illegally wiretapped his campaign headquarters at Trump Tower.

The list of Trump’s disrespectful actions toward Obama is very long, and so one may wonder what may be motivating this sudden, new, and optimistic take on Obama. Could it be recent polls or several political experts flatly saying Trump is not likable?

Watch above via CNN.

Have a tip we should know? tips@mediaite.com