President Trump invited former President Barack Obama to play a round of golf at one of his several courses during the pair’s viral moment at former President Jimmy Carter’s funeral in January, according to a new book.
The then-president-elect requested that his predecessor join him on the links as the two political foes shocked the world with their pleasantries during Carter’s state funeral inside the Washington National Cathedral on Jan. 9, 2025.
“He sat next to Barack Obama and invited him to play golf, enticing him with descriptions of Trump’s courses around the world,” according to a passage from the book “2024: How Trump Retook the White House and the Democrats Lost America,” according to Axios.
Former President Barack Obama smiles as he talks with President-elect Donald Trump at former President Jimmy Carter’s funeral on Jan. 9, 2025.AFP via Getty Images
The book highlights Trump’s return to the White House in 2024 and the campaigns of President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. It was written by political reporters Josh Dawsey, Tyler Pager and Isaac Arnsdorfn who worked at the Washington Post during the 2024 presidential campaign.
It wasn’t known when Obama was invited to one of the 17 Trump-owned courses during the funeral, or whether the Democrat accepted the invitation.
The two were photographed grinning and laughing before the start of Carter’s service.
The two men are believed to have used their lighthearted facial expressions to mask a more serious conversation from prying eyes.
At one point, Trump told Obama they had to “find a quiet place” later in the day to discuss a “matter of importance,” forensic lip reader Jeremy Freeman told The Post.
Later, the former and future president leaned over to Obama, telling his counterpart, “I’ve pulled out of that. It’s the conditions. Can you imagine that?”
Trump withdrew from Obama’s 2015 Iran nuclear deal and the 2016 Paris Climate Agreement in his first term, though it’s unclear if those pacts were what was being discussed.
“Call me at the foy after, yep,” Trump told Obama, possibly referring to the National Cathedral’s foyer.
Obama responded, “Can you just … it should be good.”
“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, as Obama nodded.
Trump later said he “didn’t realize how friendly” Obama was until their exchange.
“I said, ‘Boy, they look like two people that like each other.’ And we probably do,” Trump told NBC News from his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida following the funeral.
Trump was seated beside Obama in the second row of the National Cathedral because former first lady Michelle Obama was in Hawaii and didn’t attend the funeral due to “scheduling conflicts.”
The 61-year-old refused to attend Trump’s second inauguration inside the Capitol on Jan. 20.
She later claimed that part of the reason for not flying to Washington, DC, for the festivities was that she didn’t have the correct wardrobe.
“It started with not having anything to wear,” Obama said in an April episode of her podcast, “IMO with Michelle Obama & Craig Robinson.”
“I mean, I had affirmatively, ’cause I’m always prepared for any funeral, anything,” Obama added. “I walk around with the right dress, I travel with clothes just in case something pops off. So I was like, ‘If I’m not going to do this thing, I got to tell my team,’ I don’t even want to have a dress ready, right? Because it’s so easy to just say, ‘Let me do the right thing.’”
