Ex-President Barack Obama said he finds President Donald Trump’s “obsession” with him to be a “strange” thing during an interview on the All the Smoke podcast on Wednesday.

Co-host and former NBA swingman Matt Barnes brought up Trump, without mentioning him by name. He referred to the president as the “leader of the current administration” and asked Obama how he deals with Trump’s “racism” and criticism.

“The leader of this current administration is still very fascinated with you and your family, constantly bringing you guys up. And you’ve been out of office nearly 10 years now — how do you continue to keep your cool and take the high road, so to speak,” Barnes started off by saying.

He continued, “You constantly seem to meet the negativity and racism and class, and it makes you stand out so high. But you don’t just want to cuss his ass out sometimes?”

“the thing about it is, look, you’ve gotta ask him what it is —” Obama said slowly, before Barnes jumped back in.

“The obsession,” Barnes said.

“the obsession,” Obama agreed. “I obviously have a room in his head. A suite in his head.”

“Rent free!” Barnes yelped.

“First of all, when I was president, the last thing I had time to do was worry about what somebody said or my predecessor did,” Obama said. “They’re gone. I’ve got work to do.”

Obama continued, “The idea that I’d be worrying about somebody who came before and me trying to measure like, ‘what’s he done today?’ [and] constantly worrying about that is a strange thing to me. It shows me somebody who is not focused on the American people and the job they’re supposed to do.”

Barnes and his co-host Stephen Jackson did not bring up specific examples, but Trump has bashed Obama a fair amount recently. Trump has routinely slammed Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran, and he branded Obama a “traitor” who bowed to Iran’s theocratic leaders in a May social media post.

He also infamously posted a clip on Truth Social depicting the Barack and Michelle Obama as apes; the White House blamed the post on a staffer, and Trump later said the post overall was a “very strong piece” on voter fraud. 

More recently, Trump has shared AI-generated images of Obama’s new presidential library looking like a giant dumpster, surrounded by homeless people and tents.

Obama has slammed Trump a fair amount of times as well. He ripped Trump for sending the National Guard to Chicago last year — a move that Obama said “damaged” democracy. And he took a thinly veiled swipe at Trump during an interview with Stephen Colbert in May, in which he said America “can’t overcome” the “politicization of the criminal justice system.”

Jason Cohen contributed to this report. 

Watch above.

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