Former President Barack Obama stepped back into the political arena Saturday with an appearance on the "No Lie" podcast — hosted by liberal commentator Brian Tyler Cohen — to deliver a sweeping critique of American politics under the second Trump administration. He called it a "clown show." He lamented the loss of decorum. He cautioned Democrats against fighting dirty.

It was, in other words, a vintage Obama performance: lofty, carefully calibrated, and almost entirely detached from his own record.

The Hill reported that the interview arrived in the wake of a controversial video posted earlier this month on President Trump's Truth Social account that briefly depicted Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama as apes. The White House blamed a staffer for "erroneously" posting the video, which was subsequently taken down. Trump declined to apologize.

Cohen framed his question around what he called the "de-evolution of discourse," citing the video and the administration's labeling of two U.S. citizens killed during the immigration crackdown in Minneapolis as "domestic terrorists." Obama seized the opening:

"I think it's important to recognize that the majority of the American people find this behavior deeply troubling."

"And what is true is that there doesn't seem to be any shame about this among people who used to feel like you had to have some sort of decorum and a sense of propriety and respect for the office, right? So that's been lost."

Fair enough — decorum matters. But it's worth asking where that principle was when Obama's own allies spent eight years calling their political opponents racists, deplorables, and threats to democracy. The left didn't discover rhetorical restraint during the Trump years. They discovered that the absence of restraint can cut both ways.

The Clown Show Diagnosis

Obama's characterization of the current moment was theatrical in its own right:

"There's this sort of clown show that's happening on social media and on television."

This is from the man who turned late-night television appearances and celebrity endorsements into a governing aesthetic. Obama pioneered the merger of politics and entertainment — he just preferred his version of the spectacle. When the cultural megaphone served progressive causes, it was "engagement." When it serves someone else, it's a clown show.

The former president then pivoted to policy, arguing that Republicans haven't actually accomplished much beyond the "One Big, Beautiful Bill" and a familiar set of priorities:

"They have poured a huge amount of money into ICE and their immigration agenda, and they've cut taxes for really wealthy people, and now they're trying to unravel a bunch of rules and norms and laws that are already in place; that's an easier job."

Increased immigration enforcement and tax relief — presented here as indictments — are precisely the agenda tens of millions of Americans voted for. Obama frames these as evidence of a broken system. Conservatives recognize them as the system working.

The Restraint Sermon

The most revealing portion of the interview came when Obama urged Democrats not to mirror what he characterized as Republican tactics:

"I don't want us to simply duplicate the behavior on the other side. I don't want us to have a slash and burn strategy where we don't care about rule of law, we don't care about some of the guardrails around our democracy. We start lying and having no regard for the truth, the way the other side seems to be comfortable with right now, because if that's how we fight, then we lose what we're fighting for."

It's a noble-sounding plea — until you remember the last decade. Democrats weaponized federal agencies against political opponents, used intelligence services to push a fabricated Russia collusion narrative, impeached a sitting president twice, and spent four years insisting that election skepticism was tantamount to insurrection — while simultaneously challenging every election they lost.

Obama wants credit for a restraint he never actually practiced. Consider his own hypothetical:

"When I was President of the United States, I suppose I could have simply unilaterally ordered the military to go into some red state and harass and intimidate a governor there or cut off funding for states that didn't vote for me, I could have exercised that prerogative, but that is contrary to how I think our democracy is supposed to work."

The framing is remarkable. He didn't send the military into red states — but his administration did use the IRS to target conservative nonprofits, the DOJ to surveil journalists, and executive orders to circumvent Congress on immigration. The restraint he's advertising has a rather generous definition.

What Obama Actually Told Democrats

Beneath the decorum talk, there was a strategic message. Obama acknowledged — however obliquely — that Democrats bear some responsibility for their current position. He conceded "some unwillingness" among Democrats "to break down some of the institutional barriers," though he offered no specifics on which barriers or when. He also admitted:

"Sometimes I think we're tough on Democrats."

That's a curious statement from a party that has struggled to hold its own coalition together, lost working-class voters across racial lines, and watched its progressive wing alienate the very moderates it needs. If Democrats are being "tough on" themselves, it hasn't produced much in the way of electoral results.

Obama's real message was simpler than the soaring rhetoric suggested: the job ahead is hard, the other side fights dirty, and Democrats need to be better. It's a message that flatters its audience while demanding nothing specific from them. No policy corrections. No ideological recalibration. No reckoning with why voters chose a different direction — twice.

There's a pattern with Obama's public interventions. He appears at moments of maximum Democratic anxiety, delivers a sermon about values and process, and retreats before anyone can ask follow-up questions about outcomes. The podcast format — friendly host, no adversarial pushback — is the perfect vehicle.

The ape video was crude and rightly criticized. But Obama's broader argument — that the current political climate represents some unprecedented collapse of norms — requires amnesia about everything that preceded it. The left spent years normalizing political violence as "protest," censorship as "safety," and institutional manipulation as "defending democracy."

Obama mourns the loss of decorum. He might start by looking at when, exactly, it went missing — and who helped it out the door.