Obama’s Inner Circle Once Described Trump as ‘A Laughingstock’ — Years Before His 2016 Victory

By Charlie McCarthy | Wednesday, 18 February 2026 10:51 AM EST

Several years before the 2016 presidential election, then-President Barack Obama and his team never fathomed Donald Trump could become a serious candidate to win the White House, according to newly released oral history interviews.

The interviews, compiled by Columbia University’s Incite Institute in cooperation with the Obama Foundation, reveal how dismissive Obama’s inner circle was of Trump in the years leading up to his victory.

“I don’t think any of us really anticipated that Donald Trump would be a serious candidate for president, much less president,” former Obama chief strategist David Axelrod recalled, describing 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 the future president over his “Celebrity Apprentice” persona and birther claims — a moment that went viral and some observers have suggested may have helped galvanize Trump’s political ambitions.

In the interviews, Obama aides described viewing Trump as a “con man,” a “clown,” and a “laughingstock.” Speechwriter Jon Favreau said 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 “a dark place” in the days after the election, with aides describing 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 newly released 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.