Trump’s Obsession With Barack Obama Is Growing According To ‘Vanity Fair’

Bess Levin of Vanity Fair, as well as other media outlets, has been examining the obsession Donald Trump seems to have with former President Barack Obama. In virtually every other tweet, Trump mentions something that he has done that is bigger or better than Obama. Friends of Trump have explained that it’s just Trump’s competitive nature to attempt to top the last guy who achieved something, but many disagree, saying that it verges on obsession, and seems to reflect jealousy with the achievements of Barack Obama.

Friends Say That The Trump Obsession With Barack Obama Is Just A Marketing Technique

Vanity Fair reports Donald Trump’s friend, Christopher Ruddy, believes it’s just another of Trump’s “genius marketing techniques” to mention his predecessor.

“For the president… it’s about comparison to other players. Who’s the guy everybody’s going to compare him to? His predecessor. He just gets that intuitively, as a business guy and a bottom-line guy.”

The behavior is mostly seen on Twitter and came back with a vengeance recently when it was proven that Russia meddled in the 2016 presidential election.

“Question: If all of the Russian meddling took place during the Obama Administration, right up to January 20th, why aren’t they the subject of the investigation? Why didn’t Obama do something about the meddling? Why aren’t Dem crimes under investigation? Ask Jeff Sessions!”

In this tweet, Barack Obama was used as a weapon against Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

FOR REAL THOUGHhttps://t.co/HOl0mGKBxz

— Evan Hurst (@EvanHurst) February 21, 2018

Vanity Fair Says That The Worse Things Get For Trump The More He Mentions Obama

Bess Levin created a list of all the recent times that Donald Trump told the world how much better he is than Barack Obama at just about everything. The full list can be found in the Vanity Fair article, but here are a few memorable excerpts.

• The time he said his I.Q. is “much higher” than Obama’s;
• The time he said there was “NO WAY” Obama would have beat him a general election;
• The time he said he was tougher on guns than Obama;
• The time he said his approval rating was so much better than Obama’s one year into his presidency;

Levin believes that it is easy to tell when Donald Trump is having a bad day because Barack Obama turns up in Trump’s tweets. She believes that it’s only a matter of time before Trump boasts that he’s had more wives than Barack Obama and that he’s hosted more reality television shows than Obama.

Trump's Jealous Obama Obsession Includes Claiming Obama Never Used the Oval Office |By Jonathan Chait https://t.co/AMn7s2uB1a

— SafetyPin-Daily (@SafetyPinDaily) February 22, 2018

Trump Even Says That He Spends More Time In The Oval Office Than Barack Obama

New York Magazine writer Jonathan Chait found one particular Trump boast particularly curious, and that was one about the actual Oval Office.

“Obama never used the Oval, but Trump is different.”

While he explains that Trump’s regular use of the third person is unnerving, he wonders why it matters what room a president works in.

1. Does it really matter which room a president works in?
2. Obama did, in fact, use the Oval Office. I conducted an interview with him. There are many photos documenting his use of the room.
3. Trump is the laziest man in the modern history of the presidency. He watches television until 11 every morning. His working day often ends by 4:30 p.m.

Philip Rucker of the Washington Post agrees, saying that once upon a time, Trump would inject talk about where Barack Obama was born into nearly every conversation, and now it’s all about the way Trump thinks Obama handled Russian interference in American elections. Rucker says that Donald Trump does not let the truth interfere with his Obama agenda.

“I have been much tougher on Russia than Obama, just look at the facts.”

Rucker says that the facts suggest otherwise, but Barack Obama is Donald Trump’s favorite deflection.

Even Trump supporter Newt Gingrich says that one of the ways for Trump to look tall is to make others look shorter.

“If you watch Trump, he understands that there are two ways to be really tall, and one is to have your opponent be really short. He spends a fair amount of his time shrinking his opponents.”