President Donald Trump accused former President Barack Obama of revealing classified information after Obama’s recent comments suggesting aliens are “real.”
“He gave classified information. He’s not supposed to be doing that. I don’t know if they’re real or not… I can tell you he gave classified information. He made a big mistake,” Trump told Fox News correspondent Peter Doocy aboard Air Force One.
When Doocy referenced Trump’s past remarks that a president can declassify anything he wants, Trump joked he may get Obama “out of trouble.” Trump added that he has “no opinion” on the existence of aliens.
“I don’t have an opinion on it. I don’t talk about it. A lot of people do. A lot of people believe it,” the president said.
Obama’s original comments came during a recent podcast interview with Brian Tyler Cohen, where the former president was asked about extraterrestrial life during a rapid-fire segment.
“Are aliens real?” Cohen asked during a “lightning round” for the podcast.
“They’re real, but I haven’t seen them, and they’re not being kept in Area 51,” Obama responded.
He went on to explain there is “no underground facility” unless there is a “conspiracy” to hide it from the president.
After the remarks gained attention on social media, Obama issued a follow-up clarification, saying he was speaking more broadly about the possibility of life elsewhere in the universe.
“I was trying to stick with the spirit of the speed round, but since it’s gotten attention let me clarify,” Obama wrote on Instagram. “Statistically, the universe is so vast that the odds are good there’s life out there. But the distances between solar systems are so great that the chances we’ve been visited by aliens is low, and I saw no evidence during my presidency that extraterrestrials have made contact with us. Really!”
Meanwhile, Trump’s daughter-in-law Lara Trump recently suggested the president may have plans to address the topic publicly at some point.
“And then I have just heard just kind of around — I think he’s actually said it, I think my father-in-law actually said it — that there is some speech that I guess at the right time, and I don’t know when the right time is, he’s gonna break out and talk about [it]. And it has to do with maybe some sort of extraterrestrial life, so to speak,” she claimed.
