“Barack Obama said, ‘If we don’t do something about this president, I will’ at DNC fundraiser last night.”
No evidence Obama said, “If we don’t do something about this president, I will”
A June 12 Facebook post claims that former president Barack Obama led a charge against current president Donald Trump at a Democratic National Committee fundraiser the previous evening.
“Barack Obama said, ‘If we don’t do something about this president, I will.’ at DNC fundraiser last night,” the oddly-punctuated and curiously-worded post says.
It was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) And we couldn’t find any evidence that the post includes accurate information.
The Democratic National Committee did not immediately respond to an email asking about the post. But the claim is an old one, dating back to June 2018, after Obama spoke at a DNC fundraiser in Beverly Hills, Calif., delivering what Politico then reported were his first public comments in months.
“Obama stuck to his routine of never saying President Donald Trump’s name in public, but he spoke at length about what his problems are with the Trump presidency — and why he thinks Democrats would be foolish to believe that they’re in good shape to beat him (in 2020) just because they’ve been doing well in winning recent elections,” the June 29 article says.
DNC chairman Tom Perez introduced Obama by urging the crowd to “give it up for the real president of the United States,” but the story includes no mention of the statement the Facebook post attributes to Obama, or anything like it. Rather, he encouraged them to vote.
“Former President Barack Obama tries to mobilize Democrats at fundraiser event,” reads the headline of a Time article after the speech.
Searching the Nexis news database for the statement in the Facebook post and Obama’s name, we found no results. We also didn’t find the statement attributed to someone else in news articles.
A more recent DNC fundraiser in Atlanta on June 6 featured presidential candidates Joe Biden and Beto O’Rourke, but news stories didn’t mention Obama. Because, it seems, he wasn’t there.
We rate this statement False.
Our Sources
Facebook post, June 12, 2019
Snopes, "Did Barack Obama say, ‘If we don’t do something about this president, I will?’" July 2, 2018
Politico, "Obama: ‘You are right to be concerned,’" June 29, 2018
Time, "‘This is a moment of great urgency.’ Former president Barack Obama tries to mobilize Democrats at fundraiser event," June 29, 2018
USA Today, "Women’s rights are ‘under assault,’ Joe Biden says at Atlanta event with Beto O’Rourke," June 7, 2019
