Former President Donald Trump expressed admiration for predecessor Barack Obama at a ticketed Florida event Saturday, after spending years slamming the Democrat.
Speaking at the kickoff of his four-date “History Tour” with Bill O’Reilly at an arena in Sunrise, Florida, the Republican said of Obama, “I liked him,” while also calling him “smart and sharp,” according to The Sun Sentinel.
But Trump also told the crowd that Obama’s methods caused “tremendous division” and hatred in the country, the newspaper reported.
The compliments were a drastic change for Trump, who spent five years falsely claiming that Obama wasn’t born in the US, and made bogus claims about his two terms in office. He had also labeled the former president “the most ignorant president in our history,
” “a disaster” and the “founder of ISIS.”
Trump’s stated admiration for Obama is not without precedent however. In 2009 he told CNN “I think he’s doing a great job.”