Asked at a presser Thursday about the details of the exchange, the president-elect replied:
“It did look very friendly, I must say. I didn’t realize how friendly it looked. 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 who like each other.’”
“And we probably do,” Trump continued. “We have a little different philosophies, right? But we probably do. I don’t know. We just got along. But I got along with just about everybody. We met backstage, as you know, before we went on. And I thought it was a beautiful service. But we all got along very well, which is good.”
Obama himself has not commented on the interaction.
But the 44th president drew some criticism for what some said looked like his friendly demeanor to the man who for years pushed the racist Birther conspiracy theory that Obama was not born in the United States. Others suggested he was only humoring Trump.
Trump repeatedly drew Obama’s ire during the 2024 election, with Obama at one point slamming his successor in the White House as a “billionaire who has not stopped whining about his problems since he rode down his golden escalator nine years ago.”