President-elect Donald Trump and President Barack Obama‘s exchange at Jimmy Carter’s funeral on Thursday — which included lots of grinning and chuckling — has garnered a lot of attention (and memes) considering their very public animus relationship. A little more than two months ago, Obama was traveling the country warning voters about how dangerous Trump was to American norms and freedoms and how he didn’t care about “anyone but himself.”
Sans the election and past warnings about Trump being the next Hitler, Trump and Obama looked like the best of friends as they sat side-by-side at former President Carter’s state funeral. The encounter left many questioning what the 44th president and president-elect were discussing as Trump’s 2024 presidential opponent, Kamala Harris, sat just feet away.
Later that day, while speaking to reporters at his Florida estate, Mar-a-Lago, Donald Trump said he “didn’t realize” how “friendly” he and Obama appeared on camera.
“It did look very friendly,” Trump told Fox News’ Peter Doocy. “I saw it on your wonderful network just a little while ago, before I came in, and i said, ‘Boy, they look like two people that like each other. And we probably do.”
The president-elect said that while he and Obama have very “different” political “philosophies,” they “probably do” like each other. He added, “We just got along.”
In fact, Trump claims he got along with “just about everybody.”
“We met backstage, as you know, before we went on … we all got along very well, which is good,” said Trump.
While it’s unclear who exactly Trump “got along” with at the funeral, the 45th and now 47th president was joined in the front rows of Carter’s funeral by former Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, as well as former First Lady Barbara Bush, Hillary Clinton, former first lady and secretary of state, and President Joe Biden and First Lady Dr. Jill Biden. Behind them were Mike Pence, Trump’s former vice president, and his wife, Karen Pence, who notably snubbed Trump when he and Mike Pence shook hands.
President Obama and President Trump’s frosty political relationship is a long and storied one. During Obama’s time in office, America’s first Black president faced racist conspiracy theories that he was not born in the United States and was Muslim. Trump was the primary source of the birther conspiracy.
Trump’s racist conspiracy theory that Obama wasn’t a U.S. citizen notably drew the ire of Michelle Obama, who shared in her book “The Light We Carry” that she would “never forgive” him for “deliberately” putting her family in harm’s way.
Michelle Obama notably didn’t attend Carter’s funeral. She instead remained in Hawaii as she reportedly had “scheduling conflicts.”