When Donald Trump won the presidential election in 2016, then-President Barack Obama graciously hosted him in the Oval Office, following a tradition of setting aside partisan differences for the greater good of the country. Though it was only eight years ago, that moment seems like a different era entirely.
Earlier this week, Trump posted on social media an AI-generated video based on footage of that meeting that showed the former president being forcibly detained by the FBI and then pacing inside a jail cell. Trump has once again shown his lack of class and decorum by his depraved use of footage of that meeting to make an autocratic threat to distract the country from questions about his past associations with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
The AI-generated video was a projection of everything Trump fears and envies about his predecessor: Obama's grace, intellect, global stature and, most of all, the fact that Obama's very presence in the White House redefined what power could look like in America. It's clear that Obama has been living in Trump's head rent-free for the last two decades.
This is a preview of Michael Steele's latest column. Read the full column here. For more thought-provoking insights from Michael Steele, Alicia Menendez and Symone Sanders-Townsend, watch "The Weeknight" every Monday-Friday at 7 p.m. ET on MSNBC.
