How Obama’s Inner Circle Mocked Trump as a ‘Clown’ Years Before He Won the White House

New oral history interviews compiled by Columbia University’s Incite Institute in cooperation with the Obama Foundation reveal that Barack Obama and his team never considered Donald Trump a serious presidential candidate years before the 2016 election.

Former Obama chief strategist David Axelrod recalled overhearing Trump boast at the 2011 White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner that he was “in front of the polls.” That same night, Obama mocked Trump from the stage, ridiculing his “Celebrity Apprentice” persona and birther claims — a moment that went viral.

In the interviews, Obama aides described viewing Trump as a “con man,” a “clown,” and a “laughingstock.” Speechwriter Jon Favreau stated he believed Trump was “a ridiculous human being who deserves to be ridiculed at every possible chance” and admitted that not even a brief moment crossed his mind that Trump could win the presidency.

Even as Trump surged in the 2016 Republican primary, the Obama team remained confident he would lose to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Former press secretary Josh Earnest recalled dismissing Trump’s ideas as destined for “the dustbin of history,” an assessment he later conceded was wrong.

Following Trump’s election victory, the White House was described by aides as a “dark place” in the days after the election, with a “pall over everything” as they confronted the reality that voters had rejected much of the Obama agenda.

Rather than engaging voters skeptical of trade deals, border security policies, and cultural upheaval, Obama-era officials often treated those grievances as backward or misinformed. Trump, by contrast, tapped directly into that discontent.

The interviews, totaling more than 1,100 hours, provide a rare window into the mindset of an administration that believed its political coalition was durable, only to see it upended by a candidate it once laughed off stage.