Obama takes swing at Trump, urges institutions to resist pressure
3 Min Read
Barack Obama criticizes universities, law firms, and corporations for compromising with Donald Trump’s administration.
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Former United States President Barack Obama arrives before the 60th Presidential Inauguration in the Rotunda of the US Capitol in Washington, on January 20, 2025 (AP)
Former United States President Barack Obama has sharply criticized institutions and corporations that have made compromises with US President Donald Trump’s administration, urging them instead to defend their principles even when faced with political or financial pressure.
In an episode of Marc Maron’s final WTF podcast, Obama said that law firms, universities, and businesses should have “stood by their convictions” rather than changing course under pressure from the Trump administration.
“We all have this capacity, I think, to take a stand,” Obama said, calling on institutions to maintain integrity even if it meant losing federal support.
‘Academic independence cannot be compromised’
Obama particularly pointed to the response of US universities that adjusted policies to comply with federal demands, urging them to reject such interference. The Trump administration has increasingly tied federal funding for universities to a set of ideological and administrative conditions. This includes specific employment policies, limits on the enrollment of foreign students, and the enforcement of measures to protect applicants from conservative backgrounds.
“This will hurt if we lose some grant money in the federal government, but that’s what endowments are for,” Obama said.
“Let’s see if we can ride this out, because what we’re not going to do is compromise our basic academic independence,” he added.
The former president also criticized organizations that accepted politically motivated hiring guidelines, implicitly referring to senior Trump adviser Stephen Miller, who was behind several of the administration’s hardline policies.
“We’re not going to be bullied into saying that we can only hire people or promote people based on some criteria that’s been cooked up by Steve Miller,” he stressed.
Read more: MIT rejects White House memo, defends academic freedom
DEI rollbacks
During the interview, Obama highlighted how several companies and universities had reached settlements with the White House, including dropping diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) goals and tightening controls over campus activism in exchange for the restoration of federal funding.
A number of major law firms reportedly agreed to provide pro bono legal services to the administration, while large corporations rolled back DEI programs under federal pressure.
Disney, frequently at the center of ideological disputes in US politics, replaced its internal DEI department with an “Opportunity & Inclusion” framework aimed at promoting “a culture of belonging.”
Read more: Trump faces growing judicial resistance across the US
Progressive language was 'weird'
Obama acknowledged that standing by one’s principles may carry costs while criticizing modern political discourse for its moral absolutism.
“Sometimes it’s going to be uncomfortable,” he said, recalling a joke from Maron’s stand-up routine that Democrats had “annoyed the average American into fascism.”
The former president used the remark to reflect on the tone of modern political discourse, warning against what he described as a “holier than thou” attitude that mirrors past moral absolutism on the American right.
“There was this weird progressive language,” Obama said, suggesting that some activists had adopted a kind of moral superiority, “not different to what we used to joke about coming from the right and the moral majority.”
