Trump’s America Involves ‘the Same Arguments’ as the Historical Period That Gave Birth to the Klan, Barack Obama Says
27th July 2026
Former President Barack Obama recently gave America another reminder of how his presidency—once expected to bring the country together—left us more divided on race.
Obama compared America under President Donald Trump to the tumultuous period after the Civil War that gave birth to the Ku Klux Klan. He said the U.S. is “having the same arguments” we did in the 1860s and 1870s, when Union troops occupied the former Confederacy and attempted to secure real freedom for former slaves.
“These issues are still here,” Obama told author Malcolm Gladwell in an interview for the podcast “Reconstruction: The Unfinished Promise.”