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Barack Obama reportedly branded Donald Trump a “bullsh***r” after the pair’s election night phone call.
Mr Obama congratulated President Trump on his win after he won the election in November and it has now emerged the billionaire property tycoon professed his newfound veneration for former President Obama during the phone call.
Two friends of the former President have now told People magazine Mr Trump suddenly professed his “respect” and “admiration” for him despite their years-long feud and fraught relationship.
But the former President is said to have been so vexed by the flattery that he argued Mr Trump was being disingenuous.
“He’s nothing but a bullsh****r,” Mr Obama reportedly told two friends early last November while describing the election night call.
When pressed about whether the former President’s straight-talking assessment of Mr Trump had changed since his arrival in the White House the source said: “Well it hasn’t gotten any better.”
At the time, Mr Obama addressed the phone call during a speech at the White House but ceased to mention the actual contents of the conversation.
“I had a chance to talk to President-elect Trump last night,” he told listeners the day after the election. “At about 3:30 in the morning, I think it was, to congratulate him on winning the election and I had a chance to invite him to come to the White House tomorrow to talk about making sure that there is a successful transition between our presidencies.”
“Now, it is no secret that the president-elect and I have some pretty significant differences.”
The source's apparent revelation marks something of a break from Mr Obama’s attitude towards President Trump in the public sphere. The Chicago native has adhered to the convention of giving new President's some leeway in the early period of the administration and ceased to mention his successor President Trump by name in a speech accepting the John F Kennedy Library Foundation’s “Profile in Courage” Award at the beginning of May.
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He has also opted against directly remarking on the new President in his three public appearances since leaving the White House in January.
Nevertheless, he has made subtle references to Mr Trump since leaving the White House. In April, he took to the stage in Chicago for his first public appearance since President Trump’s inauguration and warned of the increasing polarisation of US politics. He even joked: "So, what’s been going on while I’ve been gone?”
What's more, while holidaying on the British Virgin Isles in February, he condemned President Trump’s hardline immigration order.
“The President fundamentally disagrees with the notion of discriminating against individuals because of their faith or religion,” Mr Obama's spokesman said in a statement.
“Citizens exercising their Constitutional rights to assemble, organise and have their voices heard by their elected officials is exactly what we expect to see when American values are at stake.”
Mr Trump signed an executive order restricting travel from seven majority-Muslim countries days after arriving in the White House. After prompting chaos across airports worldwide, a federal judge blocked the order in February.
The President issued a revised hardline immigration ban in March that blocks new visas for people from six Muslim-majority countries and temporarily halts the US refugee programme. However US District Judge Derrick Watson issued a temporary restraining order against the revised ban after the state of Hawaii filed a lawsuit challenging it.
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