(WASHINGTON) — Former President Barack Obama and former Vice President Kamala Harris, in separate remarks on Thursday, criticized President Donald Trump and the White House for moves that they called unconstitutional or contributing to an erosion of the country’s values.
Neither Obama or Harris have spoken much publicly since Election Day in 2024.
Obama, in a speech at Hamilton College in Clinton, New York, on Thursday, criticized the second Trump administration for levying new tariffs, for threats against universities and law firms, and for what he framed as upending the international order, according to a transcript of his remarks provided by a spokesperson and shared on Obama’s Medium profile.
“Look, I don’t think what we just witnessed in terms of economic policy and tariffs is going to be good for America, but that’s a specific policy. I’m more deeply concerned with a federal government that threatens universities if they don’t give up students who are exercising their right to free speech,” Obama said during a discussion on how he feels the values of the United States have “eroded.”
Obama added, “I am more troubled by the idea that a White House can say to law firms, ‘If you represent parties that we don’t like, we’re going to pull all our business or bar you from representing people effectively.’ That kind of behavior is contrary to the basic compact we have as Americans.”
The White House has defended actions toward universities as holding them accountable for their responses to antisemitism or other issues, and has said executive actions against law firms are meant to bolster national security or to stop work detrimental to the country.
Obama added that if he had threatened law firms or made moves similar to the second Trump administration, he would not have been tolerated, and said that he wasn’t discussing this from a “partisan basis.”
“This has to do with something more precious, which is who are we as a country and what values do we stand for … I think people tend to think, ‘oh, democracy, rule of law, independent judiciary, freedom of the press,'” he said. “That’s all abstract stuff because it’s not affecting the price of eggs. Well, you know what? It’s about to affect the price of eggs.”
He also criticized the Trump administration on foreign policy, and for striking against what Obama called the “rules-based system” of alliances and trade abroad, calling out the White House’s stated aim of getting control of Greenland for the sake of national security.
“And this is an important moment, because in the last two months, we have seen a U.S. government actively try to destroy that order and discredit it,” Obama said, according to the transcript. “And the thinking, I gather, is that somehow, since we are the strongest, we’re going to be better off if we can just bully people into doing whatever we want, and dictate the terms of trade all the time, and if we see a piece of land, be like, ‘who’s going to stop us? Greenland looks good.'”
Harris, speaking on Thursday at the Leading Women Defined Summit in California, framed actions by the White House as unconstitutional and said they are contributing to a “sense of fear,” according to video of her remarks provided by the Leading Women Defined Foundation to ABC News.
Harris said “we are in the midst of seeing progress being rolled back.”
“What has changed is that there is a sense of fear that has been taking hold in our country, and I understand it,” Harris said. “But we’re seeing people stay quiet. We are seeing organizations stay quiet. We are seeing those who are capitulating to clearly unconstitutional threats, and these are the things that we are witnessing each day in these last few months in our country.”
“And it understandably creates a great sense of fear. Because, you know, there were many things that we knew would happen, many things — I’m not here to say ‘I told you so,'” Harris said to laughter and cheers.
She added after, “I swore I wasn’t gonna say that.”
But Harris separately also framed showing courage as being able to galvanize others.
“Fear has a way of being contagious … Courage is also contagious. When one person, when a few, stand with the courage that is the courage exhibited by the leaders in this room every day, to stand, to have the courage to say, ‘I feel fear,’ the courage to say, ‘what is happening is wrong,’ the courage to say that there is a way that we must chart to get through this — understanding our power in the democracy we still have if we hold on to it,” Harris said. “Courage is contagious.”
Harris, who is considering a California gubernatorial bid, according to sources, did not say anything about her future plans.
In response to a request for comment from ABC News on Obama’s and Harris’s remarks, White House spokesman Kush Desai wrote, “During her time in office, Kamala Harris presided over the weaponization of our justice system against political opponents, the coercion of social media companies to censor free speech, and the wholesale destruction of our country’s economy and borders.
“Neither she nor Barack Obama, who wrote off worker layoffs by saying ‘some of those jobs of the past are just not going to come back’, are in any position to weigh in on the merits or constitutionality of the Trump administration’s historic action to put Americans and America First,” he added.
ABC News’ Averi Harper and Kelsey Walsh contributed to this report.
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