There was a shocking moment right before Jimmy Carter’s state funeral on Thursday: Presidents and longtime enemies Barack Obama and Donald Trump were not only seated next to each other but engaged in what appeared to be an animated conversation for nearly ten minutes.
It was part of a morning in which a virtual who’s-who of the living presidents, vice presidents, and first ladies, many of whom have complex and drama-filled histories with each other, were all sitting in close proximity, which is something that pretty much only happens at state funerals. However, most of the same people are likely to gather in 11 days at Trump’s second inauguration.
But the biggest surprise of the day was the sight of the 44th and 45th presidents, whose long feud with one another has in many ways defined American politics for the past decade and a half, appeared to get along well. The two have only met in person a handful of times in the past, including at a White House meeting shortly after the 2016 election.
What was discussed during that rare summit? Trump was asked about it by the press at a meeting with Republican governors, once he returned to Mar-a-Lago later in the day.
Trump on his interaction today with Obama: “It did look very friendly, I must say … I said, ‘boy, they look like two people like that each other.’ And we probably do.” pic.twitter.com/o21WNXwdf3
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) January 10, 2025
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“It did look very friendly, I must say,” Trump said. “I didn’t realize how friendly it looked, adding “I saw it on your wonderful network,” in reference to the reporter who asked. “‘I said, Boy, they look like two people like that each other.’ And we probably do,” Trump added. “We have little different philosophies, right? But we probably do.”
He added that he “got along with just about everybody” at the funeral, including all three of Trump’s past presidential opponents — Hillary Clinton, President Biden, and Kamala Harris — as well as Bill Clinton, and Trump’s former Vice President Mike Pence. Trump has said horrendously cruel things to all of those people in the past, and they have tended to return fire.
Trump also referred to a meeting with the others “backstage,” before all of the presidents and other political figures entered the church, indicating that all the reactions about different people “snubbing” one another had less force if they had been in the same room earlier.
Trump tells Obama they will ‘find a quiet place’ to discuss ‘matter of importance’ at Carter funeral https://t.co/nAYaG907z5 pic.twitter.com/T3ppYamqsb
— New York Post (@nypost) January 9, 2025
Trump did not technically answer the question of what he and Obama discussed, although the New York Post did ask a lip-reading expert to interpret, possibly dubiously, what was said. The “forensic lip reader” believed that Obama had asked Trump to “find a quiet place” to discuss a ““matter of importance.”
“I can’t talk, we have to find a quiet place sometime. This is a matter of importance and we need to do this outside so that we can deal with it, certainly, today,” Trump “said,” per the lip reader.
Later, Trump is believed to have said “I’ve pulled out of that. It’s the conditions. Can you imagine that?,” indicating that it was some treaty, possibly the Paris Climate Accord or the Iran nuclear deal. Neither president commented on the Post’s interpretation.
Photo courtesy of the Political Tribune media library.
