Former President Barack Obama offered his fellow party members some tough love at his first fundraising appearance since the 2024 presidential election.
Speaking at a private dinner hosted by outgoing New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy and his wife Tammy, Obama told attendees it was time to stop licking their wounds over President Donald Trump’s victory, CNN reported.
For people frustrated by Trump’s America, “I think it’s going to require a little bit less navel-gazing and a little less whining and being in fetal positions. And it’s going to require Democrats to just toughen up,” Obama said Friday.
The former president has kept a relatively low profile during Trump’s second term, despite remaining a beloved and influential figure in many Democratic circles.
He broke cover in April to denounce the president as “a wannabe king, a wannabe dictator running around trying to punish his enemies,” and blasted the administration’s decision to shutter the U.S. Agency for International Development.
In June he also encouraged law firms, universities, institutions and even government employees to make “uncomfortable” sacrifices to defend American democracy, saying the U.S. was “dangerously close” to a more autocratic government.
He didn’t identify Trump by name, though—just as he didn’t name the president when he wrote in a social media post on July 4 that America “is not the project of any one person.”
Friday’s fundraiser represented Obama’s first real foray back into the ring to help Democrats take on the Trump administration during the midterm elections. Part of the event’s $2.5 million haul will go the New Jersey governor’s race, which will see Rep. Mikie Sherrill attempting to replace Murphy.
Obama praised Sherrill and former Rep. Abigail Spanberger, the Democratic nominee for governor of Virginia, as “powerful spokespersons for a pragmatic, commonsense desire to help people and who both have remarkable track records of service.”
He also dismissed inter-party battles over ideology and said Democrats needed to find a way to “deliver for people and make their lives better.”
And he repeated his call for Democrats to stand up for what they think is right and “be willing to be a little bit uncomfortable” in their defense of the world they want to leave their children and grandchildren.
“If we all do that, if we do our jobs over the next year and a half, then I think we will rebuild momentum and we will position ourselves to get this country moving in the direction it should,” he said.
