US President Donald Trump has accused former president Barack Obama of disclosing classified information following Obama’s recent remarks suggesting that aliens are “real,” triggering a fresh political exchange over comments made in a podcast interview.
Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One, Trump was asked about Obama’s statement during an interaction with Fox News correspondent Peter Doocy. Responding to a question on whether he had seen evidence of non-human visitors to Earth, Trump said Obama had revealed classified material and should not have made such comments.
Trump repeated the claim when pressed further, saying that Obama had made a “big mistake” by disclosing information he described as classified. He added that he did not know whether aliens were real or not but maintained that Obama had taken the matter out of classified information. Trump also suggested he could intervene by declassifying the information, saying he might “get him out of trouble.”
The exchange followed comments made by Obama in an interview published last weekend on the No Lie podcast hosted by journalist Brian Tyler Cohen. During the interview, Obama was asked about extraterrestrial life and said aliens are real, though he added that he had not seen them. He also stated that they were not being kept in Area 51, dismissing the idea of a hidden underground facility unknown to the president.
Following the attention generated by the remarks, Obama later sought to clarify his comments in a social media post. He said he had seen no evidence during his presidency that extraterrestrials had made contact with Earth. Explaining the context of his earlier response, Obama said he was speaking in the spirit of a speed round and emphasised that while the universe is vast and the odds of life elsewhere are statistically high, the likelihood of aliens visiting Earth is low.
The White House referred queries on whether Obama had revealed classified information to Trump’s remarks. Trump has previously addressed the subject of unidentified flying objects and extraterrestrial life on several occasions. In a 2019 interview with ABC News, he said he had attended a brief meeting on the issue but expressed scepticism about the existence of UFOs.
That same year, Trump told Tucker Carlson that he personally doubted the idea of extraterrestrial visitors, though he acknowledged that “anything is possible.” In 2020, when asked about the Roswell incident, Trump said he would not discuss what he knew but described it as “very interesting.”
The latest exchange adds to a long-running public fascination with extraterrestrial claims, now intersecting with political rivalry and renewed debate over classified information and presidential disclosures.
