But because Trump won 2024, now they get to say 2020 was a fluke. And Biden got lucky. Yeah.
It was such a profound moment. Meaning now what took place. Guess who lost all credibility in the room behind closed doors when everybody's waiting to see what he and she have to say.
Guess who they are? Barack Obama and Michelle. You used to sit in a room and you'd say something Schumer.
You'd say something Pelosi. You'd say something, Hillary. You'd say something, Bill.
You'd say something. Everybody's like, "Brock, what do you what do you guys think? " Yeah.
The last one you go to, right? And I was like, "Hey, you guys just go live at your Martha's Vineyard type of stuff. Your strategy didn't work.
" What happens when Patrick Bet David decides to take a political wrecking ball to Barack Obama? It started with a few pointed observations, then suddenly the conversation turned into something far more explosive. But the real twist wasn't just what B.
David said, it was why he said it and what happened after. Because when Obama enters the conversation, apparently even the thermostat starts sweating. And this time the punchline may be political.
Everybody that was a candidate to be a Nobel Prize to be considered this year, their applications had to be submitted before January 31st of 2025, which means President Trump had just been president for 11 days. You can't nominate him. He hadn't done anything yet.
You know, President Obama got a Nobel Peace Prize, 8 and a half months of being a president. You know what that means? That means two weeks after he became president, they started nominating him to be considered as a Nobel Prize winner.
So even though we say he won the Nobel Prize only 9 months later, he didn't. He won it two weeks later. Think about the madness of people who nominated him two weeks later.
Patrick Bet David is not exactly known for whispering his opinions into a pillow and hoping nobody notices. The entrepreneur and host of Value Attainment has built a massive media platform by turning politics, business, culture, and current events into one giant intellectual boxing ring where somebody is usually getting hit with a question they were hoping would stay safely backstage. And when Barack Obama entered the conversation, Bet David did not exactly bring flowers.
But imagine if, let's just say, a person, let's make this person up. Let's say there's a person out there who is very well spoken. He's got 132 million followers on Twitter.
Okay, let's say he even becomes a two-term president. And then let's say he starts a podcast with another guy whose name is Bruce, okay, who's a very famous singer, okay? And they sign a $25 million podcast with Spotify.
Okay, a year later, Spotify drops him. Can you see that happening with somebody that big? I mean, that's pretty crazy for that to happen, but that's what just happened to Barack Obama.
The interesting part is that Bet David's criticism of Obama is not simply about whether you like or dislike the former president. His argument goes deeper into political strategy, economic responsibility, Democratic Party leadership, and the question of how much influence Obama continued to exercise after leaving the White House. That is where this story gets interesting because Obama may have left the presidency in 2017, but politically the Obama era never really disappeared.
By the way, Obama sat down with somebody and folks, if you're an old man, brace for impact because he's trying to disrespect and I don't appreciate it. I don't appreciate when when some people do that kind of stuff. But here's Barack Obama having a conversation making fun of old men, you know, it's not appropriate.
But here's what he had to say. Go ahead, Rob. Nice to look at his leg.
Also, especially young people, cuz it's fair to say that 80% of the world's problems involve old men hanging on and who are afraid of death. In fact, Bet David has repeatedly treated Obama as something much larger than a former president. He has discussed Obama as a political architect whose influence extended into the Democratic party long after his 8 years in office.
And that argument becomes particularly spicy when you look at what happened to the party after Obama. But think you're Obama. Okay, first go from the Obama's lens.
Okay, Obama's are sitting there having to hear people compare Kamla to Obama. Do you know what that does to Obama? Do you know Obama is sitting there saying shut the you know that's what Obama's saying internally, right?
For years Obama was the Democratic party's ultimate political success story. He entered the White House in 2009 after winning the 2008 election, defeated Mitt Romney for reelection in 2012, and became one of the most recognizable political figures on the planet. His speeches were polished, his campaign operation was technologically innovative, and his ability to connect with voters turned him into something between a politician and a political brand.
But according to Bet David's broader criticism, that success created a dangerous temptation for Democrats, believing the Obama formula could simply be copied forever. And that is where the story takes a turn because political parties have one problem that businesses understand very well. Eventually the founder leaves the room.
If the organization cannot function without that person, the problem is not the person. The problem is the system. B.
David has argued that Democrats became overly dependent on the Obama era and failed to develop a new generation capable of reproducing that level of political dominance. His appearance on the Charlie Kirk show in December 2024 was explicitly framed around the argument that Democrats led by Obama had squandered their political dominance. Hope they double down.
Please double down. Go ahead. Do it.
Go ahead and double down and not learn from your from your mistakes. That's kind of like you got a seven game series you're playing against another team in the World Series or basketball and you see what plays they keep playing. You doubled down game two, you doubled down game three, you doubled on game four, you get swept.
It's double dumb to do that. I don't think they're going to do that. But I think what happened, and if you want to come back to the next segment, I think the one person that screwed the whole thing up for Democrats is the great Barack Obama.
And honestly, that criticism has a certain brutal simplicity to it. Imagine owning a restaurant that becomes famous because one chef is incredible, then spending the next decade putting his picture on the wall while everyone else in the kitchen is quietly googling the recipe. That is essentially the kind of political succession problem Bet David is pointing toward.
But then came the economic argument, and this is where the gloves really came off. During a 2024 PBD podcast interview with Donald Trump, B. David brought up comments Obama had made about the economy Trump inherited after Obama left office.
Obama had argued that the economic conditions Trump benefited from were partly the result of the groundwork established during Obama's presidency, including the long period of job growth that preceded the transition. Bet David put the issue directly to Trump, asking for his reaction to Obama's claim. Trump's response was predictable.
He rejected the idea that Obama deserved primary credit and argued that the economic conditions were already strong when he took office. The exchange became one of those political moments where economic statistics suddenly became ammunition because apparently even unemployment numbers can get drafted into a presidential rivalry. But here is the important part.
The argument is more complicated than either political camp likes to admit. Obama did preside over a substantial recovery from the Great Recession. While Trump inherited an economy with a historically long expansion already underway, I spent eight years cleaning up the mess that the Republicans had left me the last time.
So just in case everybody has a hazy memory that that he didn't he didn't do nothing except those big tax cuts. So how do you feel about this when you when you see him saying this last week? I think he's angry.
He pretends not to be but I think he's an angry guy. He's a nasty guy. Uh he's got a little bit of an edge and no he's he's angry about it.
At the same time, Trump implemented major tax legislation and other policies that supporters credit with helping businesses and investment before the pandemic disrupted the economy. So when someone says, "I built this economy," the obvious question is, "Built what part? " Because economies are not IKEA furniture.
You cannot simply walk into the Oval Office, open a box, find 37 leftover screws, and declare that the previous administration assembled the entire thing incorrectly. Economic outcomes usually stretch across administrations and the policies of one president can influence conditions under the next. That is precisely why Bet David's framing becomes politically explosive.
He is challenging the tendency of presidents and their supporters to claim ownership over economic success while blaming predecessors for everything that goes wrong. And Obama is not the only target of that criticism. Bet.
David has also questioned Obama's continuing role in Democratic politics, particularly around the party's leadership and electoral strategy that became especially relevant during the 2024 election when Obama publicly campaigned for Kla Harris and was still treated as one of the party's most valuable messengers. Think about that for a moment. A president leaves office yet later Democrats still reach into the political toolbox and pull out the Obama card.
Why? Because the Obama brand still works. At least that is the theory.
Obama saying every man needs a gay friend. [laughter] Obama goes on his uh wife's podcast, okay? And they're sitting there having this conversation and it opens.
They covered a lot of different things. Right off the bat, they talked about the divorce. Hey, aren't we supposed to be getting a divorce and all this stuff?
Just tell me if this seems like they woke up together in the same bed this morning, the last week, the last month, the last 90 days, or if they live in two different places. Just Just watch this real quick. Go ahead, Rob.
But BD David's argument is essentially that relying on a former president's popularity can become a substitute for developing a genuinely compelling future. And suddenly this is no longer just about Barack Obama. It is about what happens when a political party becomes addicted to nostalgia.
Obama represented a specific political moment. The financial crisis had created enormous dissatisfaction. George W.
Bush was leaving office with low approval ratings and Obama presented himself as a generational change candidate. His 2008 campaign was built around hope, change, organization, and a message that resonated strongly with voters who wanted something different. But political magic has an expiration date.
That is one of the uncomfortable lessons B. David's criticism raises. The candidate who represents change eventually becomes the establishment.
The outsider eventually becomes the former president. And the political revolution eventually becomes a chapter in a history book. That transition becomes even more fascinating when you consider Obama's influence on the Democratic Party after his presidency.
His political network remained powerful. His public profile remained enormous. And his voice continued to carry weight with Democratic voters.
Yet, the party still struggled to recreate the coalition that produced Obama's victories. Meanwhile, figures like B. David were building enormous audiences outside the traditional political media establishment.
In 2009, an Obama committee said, "Listen, instead of putting all this money into going into space, who cares about this anyways? It would take 12 years and$26 billion to go to space and return. Why would we want to put $26 billion into it?
Again, government Obama 2009. So, a man shows up, okay? His name is Elon Musk.
He doesn't have the government. He doesn't have any of that stuff. He's just a regular entrepreneur.
Maybe a crazy entrepreneur. He's definitely somebody that's going to push the envelope and disrupt going up against the government. So, 12 years, $26 billion.
He ends up doing it in six years, $1 billion, less than a billion dollars. They fly into space for two weeks and they return safely. That matters because Bet David's entire business model is based on the idea that the old gatekeepers no longer control the conversation.
And Barack Obama represents one of the most successful products of the old political media era. That does not mean Obama's irrelevant. Quite the opposite.
It means his relevance is exactly why the criticism matters. Bet David's platform represents the new media environment where a businessman, podcaster, or independent commentator can challenge a former president without waiting for a television network to hand him a microphone. That shift is enormous.
For decades, political figures were protected by layers of institutions. Interviews were carefully managed, messages were rehearsed, and access was limited. Now, somebody can sit behind a podcast microphone, ask a question about Obama's legacy, and potentially reach millions of people before the traditional media ecosystem has even finished scheduling the panel discussion.
And that is where the phrase destroyed Obama becomes more interesting than a simple insult. The real destruction Bet David is attempting is not physical, personal, or literal. It is narrative.
He is challenging the story that Obama's political success automatically means his political strategy was successful forever. He is challenging the idea that Obama's economic legacy can be discussed without examining what happened afterward. He is challenging the Democratic Party's continued reliance on Obama era political instincts.
And he is challenging the assumption that because Obama remains personally popular, his political blueprint must still be the answer. November 5th may have been a great day for many of you conservatives and Republicans. It may have been a great day for President Donald Trump.
It may have been a great day with the Avengers that they put together himself, Bobby Kennedy that came out in Arizona also at one of the Turning Point USA events. You got Elon Musk. You got Tulsi Gabbard.
You got the entire team, Laura Trump who did a phenomenal job behind closed doors. Vake, all of these folks. But November 5th, listen to me folks, was the worst day ever for one person.
You know who that one person was? Barack Obama. Obama's presidency was historically significant.
He became the first black president of the United States, served two terms, and fundamentally reshaped Democratic politics. But the question B. David raises is whether the Democratic party became too comfortable with the Obama brand and too dependent on the political infrastructure surrounding it.
And if that criticism sounds harsh, it is supposed to. Political commentary without tension is basically a documentary about paint drying. The bigger problem for Democrats is that the Obama comparison became almost impossible to escape.
That is exactly where B. David's critique starts becoming less about Obama personally and more about institutional failure. Because if your political strategy depends on finding another version of the person who already succeeded, you are not necessarily building the future.
You are shopping for a sequel. And sequels have a nasty habit of disappointing audiences. There is also another fascinating layer to Bet.
David's relationship with Obama that makes the story even more unusual. In 2021, Bet David publicly proposed paying Obama and Donald Trump $5 million each to participate in a long- form conversation designed to encourage civil discourse. He later described the idea as an attempt to bring two former presidents together for an extended discussion rather than another short television appearance filled with interruptions and political theater.
That tells you something important. Obama supporters can point to economic recovery, healthcare reform, judicial appointments, and his historic political achievements. So, so then after that you have the bureaucrats and aristocrats.
That's the last phase. And you know what happens when you get the bureaucrats and aristocrats? Then comes the fall.
We are at the bureaucrats and aristocrats phase. Here's a part. If Obama, if President Obama wants to be known as the synergist synergist that brought it together, if Obama wants to be known as the synergist, there will there will only be one in this area.
There won't be six synergist. If you want to be a synergist where you bring it together, you have a level that you go to that you're in a league of your own. That's all there is to it because right now his legacy is one of division.
But Bet David's strongest move is to force the conversation away from personality and toward results because once the personality disappears, the scoreboard becomes harder to ignore. And that may be the real reason the Obama story continues to generate so much heat. The former president is still one of the most recognizable political figures in America.
Yet the political world around him looks completely different from the one he dominated in 2008. The Democratic Party has experienced major electoral setbacks, internal debates, generational tensions, and questions about its future direction. Obama remains influential, but influence is not the same as control.
And that distinction is where Bet David's argument hits hardest. Because perhaps the ultimate test of a political leader is not whether the world remembers you. It is whether the institution you leave behind can succeed without you.
That is the question hanging over Obama's legacy. And it is the question B. David keeps pushing toward.
Was Obama the architect of a political dynasty that successfully transformed American politics? Or did Democrats become so attached to his formula that they struggled to create the next chapter? Was his economic legacy the foundation of what came afterward?
Or did later leaders simply inherit conditions they interpreted differently? And perhaps the most uncomfortable question of all is this. If Obama's political blueprint was so successful, why has reproducing that success become so difficult?
Those questions are far more dangerous than another screaming match on television because they cannot be answered with applause. They require looking at the record. They require separating personality from policy.
And they require admitting that political history is rarely as simple as one side's highlight reel and the other side's blooper compilation. Cuz this is what the Obama thing was all about. Obama said, "My mom's white, my dad's black.
" It's not white America, black America. It's the United States of America. It's not red or blue.
It's all four together. Why don't we check out what happened while Barack Obama was president? Well, let's see here.
Uh, everybody said that race relations was just fine and then Barack Obama got into office and decided to infect a virus into this country and use race for political purposes to try and separate us to really rend and pull at the fabric of this country. And people are sick of that. People have seen the divisiveness.
What did Barack Obama say right there when race relations collapsed [music] in 2013? He said, "Tayon Martin's my boy. " The real story is that Bet David is attacking something much bigger, the mythology surrounding political legacy.
He is asking whether Obama's enormous influence has been mistaken for permanent political success, whether Democrats relied too heavily on an old formula, and whether the party has spent too much time trying to recreate the past instead of inventing the future. And that is where the story gets deliciously ironic because Barack Obama built one of the most powerful political brands in modern American history. Patrick Bet David built a media empire dedicated to asking powerful people uncomfortable questions.
And now those two worlds collide, not necessarily in a room, but in the argument over what Obama actually left behind. The funny part is that nobody needs a boxing ring for this fight. The scoreboard is history.
The weapons are statistics, elections, policy decisions, and political strategy. And the audience gets to decide who made the stronger case. Because if Bet David is right, Obama did not simply leave behind a legacy.
He left behind a political party still trying to figure out what to do after the Obama era ended. And if that is true, then the biggest question is no longer whether Patrick Bet David can criticize Barack Obama. The bigger question is whether the Democratic Party can finally prove that it has moved beyond him.
Because history has a cruel sense of humor.
