NEED TO KNOW
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Presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump had what appeared to be a very surprising chat during the funeral for President Jimmy Carter in January
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Now, a new book claims to reveal what Trump asked Obama during their friendly conversation
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The book, titled 2024: How Trump Retook the White House and the Democrats Lost America, details Trump’s path to victory during the 2024 presidential election
A new book claims to reveal the story behind the much-circulated image of presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump sharing what appeared to be a friendly chat at the January funeral of Jimmy Carter.
Trump, 79, and Obama, 63, were photographed smiling during their discussion inside the Washington National Cathedral on Jan. 9, and considering their contentious past, the moment led to plenty of speculation about what exactly they could have been talking about.
Now, the new book 2024: How Trump Retook the White House and the Democrats Lost America from journalists Josh Dawsey, Tyler Pager and Isaac Arnsdorf alleges that Trump had invited Obama to golf with him at Carter’s funeral.
“He sat next to Barack Obama and invited him to play golf, enticing him with descriptions of Trump’s courses around the world,” the book alleges.
Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Barack Obama, Donald Trump and Melania Trump at Jimmy Carter’s funeral on Jan. 9, 2025
Trump owns multiple courses across the globe, including locations in Scotland, Ireland, Florida, Indonesia, New Jersey, Dubai and Washington, D.C., among others.
When Obama arrived at the funeral, he greeted the other former presidents and vice presidents in attendance, all of whom stood up as they said hello. Trump, who attended the service with his wife, first lady Melania Trump, did not stand to greet Obama. But moments later, the two were seen speaking.
The president previously acknowledged his chat with Obama at the ceremony “did look very friendly,” telling Fox News’ Peter Doocy in a clip shared by Forbes that he and the former president “probably do” like each other.
“I didn’t realize it, how friendly it looked,” he said during a Mar-a-Lago meeting with Republican governors hours after Carter’s funeral. “I saw it on your wonderful network, just a little while ago, before I came in. And I said, ‘Boy, they look like two people [who] like each other.’ And we probably do.”
He added, “We have a little different philosophies, right? But we probably do. I don’t know, we just got along.”
The admission was a sharp deviation from Trump’s previous comments about Obama, who he targeted with a birther conspiracy campaign for years before entering the White House.
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Trump alleged for years that Obama — who was born in Hawaii — had not been born in the United States. In her 2018 memoir Becoming, Michelle Obama said Trump’s birther theory was “crazy and mean-spirited,” writing, “its underlying bigotry and xenophobia [were] hardly concealed.”
Michelle, 61, vowed to “never forgive” Trump for spreading misinformation about her husband’s past, which she said endangered their two daughters Sasha, 24 and Malia, 27.
Read the original article on People
