Obama and Michelle take digs at Trump in 3-hour presidential center opening ceremony with A-listers and ex-presidents

Former President Barack Obama and ex-first lady Michelle Obama took digs at President Trump during a three-hour ceremony celebrating their legacy at a new center in Chicago — alongside foreign dignitaries, Hollywood stars and other A-listers.Obama said in his remarks at a dedication ceremony for his new presidential center in Chicago that on the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution, it was important to remember how “radical the whole idea of self-government really was back in 1776.”“To that point, human history was a tale of conquest and caste and rigid hierarchies.A world where the strong dominated the weak, where power and wealth and status flowed through lineage, and the many were ruled by the few,” the 44th president said.“But out of the fire and steel of a revolution, a different story took flight on this continent a declaration that we are all created equal, endowed by our creator with certain unalienable rights, and that in the newly independent United States there will be no kings or lower, no serfs or subjects, but only citizens.”“No Kings” demonstrations have swept through major cities like New York and Washington, DC, since Trump was inaugurated for a second time in January 2025, opposing the president’s immigration agenda and other policies.Though Obama left office in January 2017, the Presidential Center’s 19-acre campus on the South Side of Chicago — with a near-windowless, 225-foot towering museum at its center — took years to build as costs ballooned from $500 million to more than $830 million.Obama also thanked his wife and daughters, joking that Michelle “did me wrong” by not letting him review her own remarks beforehand, which had caused him to become visibly emotional.“She knew she was going to mess me up, and she did it anyway.

But she’s always made me better.And I could not be more grateful,” he admitted.Michelle Obama praised her husband’s achievements in and out of office, needling Trump — wi...