Obama Takes a Shot at Trump Amid Michelle Obama Backlash

Barack Obama is throwing a sharp elbow at Donald Trump’s latest Iran deal — and he is making it clear he is not buying the president’s tough-guy victory lap.

The former president took aim at Trump’s emerging agreement with Iran during an interview with ABC News, suggesting the president may be trying to bully his way back into a deal that looks a lot like the one he spent years tearing apart.

Obama said it was “doubtful” that any deal negotiated by Trump would turn out to be “significantly different” or a “significant improvement” over the 2015 nuclear agreement reached during the Obama administration.

“It’s a reminder that on a lot of different foreign policy problems, the notion we can just bully our way or bomb our way to a solution may sometimes seem appealing,” Obama said.

He added that diplomacy is often the better path when the alternative is war.

“You’d think we would’ve learned that lesson by now, but it seems like every so often we have to learn that lesson again,” Obama said.

The jab comes as Trump claims a new U.S.-Iran agreement is basically done and will be formally signed in Switzerland on Friday after months of turmoil in the region.

Trump made the announcement Sunday, just hours before his UFC birthday bash at the White House — an event that is now causing its own political firestorm.

The celebration took a nasty turn when heavyweight fighter Josh Hokit used his victory speech to hurl a crude and offensive insult at former First Lady Michelle Obama.

“And lastly, Michelle Obama is a man. Am I right, America?” Hokit said after his win.

Trump praised Hokit and other winning fighters in a Monday morning post on Truth Social, further fueling the backlash.

So far, Barack and Michelle Obama have not publicly responded to the slur.

But the ugly moment comes after years of Trump allies spreading attacks and conspiracy-style insults about the former first lady.

Obama’s interview with ABC News took place before the UFC event, but his criticism of Trump landed right in the middle of the latest uproar.

The former president argued that his original Iran agreement had worked by keeping Tehran’s nuclear program under tighter limits until Trump pulled the United States out of the deal during his first term.

Trump withdrew from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, known as the JCPOA, in 2018 and repeatedly blasted it as one of the worst deals ever made.

The Obama-era agreement required Iran to limit uranium enrichment, reduce its nuclear stockpile and submit to inspections in exchange for sanctions relief.

Republicans have long attacked the deal as weak, arguing it gave Iran too many benefits without permanently ending its nuclear ambitions.

Now, Trump is preparing to sign a new agreement of his own — and Obama is suggesting the president may have simply circled back to the same basic idea.

“It is doubtful that any agreement that arises is going to be significantly different or a significant improvement from the deal that we had in the first place and had worked for, for a long stretch of time before we, the United States, pulled out of it,” Obama said.

The full text of Trump’s deal has not yet been released.

Major details about the future of Iran’s nuclear program are also still unresolved and are expected to be negotiated during the 60 days after the agreement is signed.

Trump insists the agreement will reopen the Strait of Hormuz and return the critical shipping chokepoint to its pre-war status.

Administration officials say the framework would eventually require Iran to eliminate its stockpile of highly enriched uranium and accept international verification before receiving sanctions relief.

Those terms have already sparked comparisons to Obama’s deal.

But Trump is rejecting that comparison.

Speaking in France on Monday during a meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron at the G7, Trump called his Memorandum of Understanding with Iran “a very powerful document.”

He also took another swipe at Obama’s nuclear agreement.

“It’s not like the Obama document, which was a terrible document,” Trump said. “This is a very powerful document, and I want it to be released probably soon.”

For Obama, the message was clear: Trump may have spent years trashing his Iran deal, but he could now be on the verge of signing something that looks very familiar.