Donald Trump Revives Old Rivalry with Obama Amid White House Renovation Backlash
US President Donald Trump has once again turned his sights on a familiar opponent, Barack Obama, using criticism of the former leader’s presidential library to deflect growing controversy over his own plans to remodel the White House.
Speaking during a tense press briefing on Tuesday, Trump took aim at the Obama Presidential Center in Chicago, saying, “He needs help.
It’s not too pretty. It’s closed, it’s stopped, they ran out of money, he’s building a library-slash-museum, and they’re stuck.”
The remarks come as Trump faces mounting scrutiny over his controversial $250 million makeover of the White House, which includes plans for a lavish ballroom in the East Wing and the controversial decision to pave over the Rose Garden.
Despite Trump’s assertion that the Obama project has ground to a halt, construction on the 19-acre complex in Jackson Park continues.
The centre is designed to include a museum, library branch, auditorium, gym, and even a community garden.
Still, Trump couldn’t resist another jab. “He wanted only women and DEI to build it, that’s what they got.
When the Obama Presidential Center opens next year, it will be a hub for change — a place for people from all over the world to come together, get inspired, and take what they learn back to their own communities. https://t.co/gW6UCYBCAJ pic.twitter.com/U92thHbAUL
— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) October 18, 2025
I built a great building in Chicago, we got it built very quickly, very well, we used the construction workers of Chicago, and they’re great workers,” he said, proudly referring to his own Trump International Hotel and Tower, completed in 2009.
He went on, “I suggest that he get them involved, but they’re hundreds of millions of dollars over budget, and I think it’s stopped.”
The president’s comments were peppered with trademark self-praise and digressions. “I’ve been reading these terrible stories, but that’s the way our country was run under President Obama, too,” he added.
However, Obama himself recently posted footage showing steady progress at the construction site — an image that directly contradicts Trump’s claims.
The Obama Foundation aims to complete the center by spring 2026, though costs have ballooned from an initial $300 million to a projected $850 million, all privately funded.
Meanwhile, Trump’s second-term obsession with remodeling Washington, D.C. continues to raise eyebrows. Beyond the East Wing ballroom, he’s floated grandiose ideas, including an ‘Arc de Trump’ monument, as part of his vision to “redefine” the American capital.
This isn’t the first time Trump has taken a swipe at his predecessor’s project. In May, he branded it “a disaster”, insisting Obama had filled it with “woke” ideals and the wrong kind of workforce.
“I don’t like that happening,” Trump said then. “I don’t like that happening, because it’s, I think it’s bad for the presidency that a thing like that should happen.
He’s got a library that’s a disaster, and he wants to be very politically correct, and he didn’t use good, hard, tough, mean construction workers that I love.”
For now, both presidents appear to be building legacies of very different kinds, one in glass and steel, the other in controversy and concrete.
