The Obama Foundation has responded to Donald Trump’s repeated attacks on the Obama Presidential Center not with fury. The former president’s foundation wants its loudest critic to do something in particular.
The gesture is a break from the often-hostile tone that defines the relationship between the two presidents. While Trump has spent months deriding the Chicago project as a “disaster” and posting AI photos of it in ruins, Obama’s team chose a different script entirely.
Obama Foundation sends invitation to Donald Trump
Valerie Jarrett, CEO of the Obama Foundation and a former senior adviser in the Obama administration, extended an invitation to Donald Trump during a press preview last week. Speaking to USA Today on June 3, “Judge for yourself,” Jarrett said. “When our visitors come, they will see a spectacular campus… If [Trump] would like to come and visit it himself, we would welcome him and give him a tour.”
The $850 million (£670 million) Obama Presidential Center occupies 19.3 acres in Jackson Park on Chicago’s South Side. It opens to the public on the Juneteenth weekend. It will be the first institution of its kind dedicated to America’s first Black president.
Beyond the museum, the campus includes a basketball court, playground, picnic area, auditorium, classrooms, a café, and a sledding hill. Josh Harris, the foundation’s vice president of public engagement, told the Associated Press the space is designed as a “safe space for people to come… together as a community to think about what change you can bring to your own neighbourhood.” Admission is set at $30, narrowly edging out the Nixon Presidential Library to become the most expensive among its peers.
However, Donald Trump’s criticism of the project has been sustained. In February, he alleged Illinois was pouring millions into what he called “Obama’s badly delayed and tremendously over-budget ‘library.’” Speaking from the Oval Office in May, he described the centre as “a disaster” constructed by “woke people.” Days ago, he escalated the attacks by sharing an AI photo on Truth Social. It showed the library a decade from now: abandoned, strewn with rubbish, and ringed by homeless encampments.
