On February 19, President Trump told reporters about President Obama’s comments about aliens: “He gave classified information. He would never do something like that.”
President Barack Obama says aliens are ‘real’ in podcast interview
The former president later clarified that there was “no evidence” of aliens while he was president.
President Donald Trump accused former President Barack Obama of releasing classified information during recent comments the former president made about aliens.
“He gave classified information. He would never do that,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One on February 19, adding that it was a “big mistake.”
Podcast host Brian Tyler Cohen asked President Obama if aliens are real in an interview published on February 14, to which the former president replied, “They are real, but I’ve never seen one.”
“They’re not being kept in … Area 51. Unless there’s this huge conspiracy and they’re hiding it from the President of the United States, there’s no underground facility,” Obama added.
The brief comment during rapid-fire questions quickly gained attention, and President Obama later sought to clarify his remarks in a statement on social media.
“I was trying to live up to the spirit of the speed round, but since it’s getting attention, let me be clear,” Obama wrote. “Statistically speaking, the universe is so vast that there is a good chance that there is life in it. But the distances between solar systems are so great that it is unlikely that aliens ever visited us, and during my presidency, we saw no evidence that extraterrestrial life has come into contact with us. Really!”
Asked whether Obama’s comments that he said disclosed classified information confirmed the existence of aliens, Trump continued to criticize the former president.
“I don’t know if they’re real or not, but I can tell you that he provided classified information,” Trump said. “He shouldn’t have done that. He made a big mistake. He took it out of classified information.”
President Trump added, “No, I don’t have an opinion on that.” “I never talk about it. A lot of people talk about it. A lot of people believe it.”
President Obama’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
Congress has heard testimony about unidentified flying objects (also known as unidentified anomalous phenomena) three times since 2023. In September, four witnesses said they had seen what they believed to be an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAP), and the hearing also included a video purportedly showing a U.S. military drone engaging the mysterious object.
The Department of Defense’s UFO Office recently reported that it had found no “verifiable evidence” of extraterrestrial life, activity, or technology, and NASA released a report in September 2023 saying the agency had found no evidence that UAPs were extraterrestrial in nature.
Contributors: Eric Lagatta, Anthony Robledo
