President Donald Trump didn’t hold back Tuesday, blasting the design of former President Barack Obama’s presidential library.
When asked about it in the Oval Office, Trump said bluntly, “It’s not too pretty. He wanted only women and DEI to build it. Well? That’s what they got.”
Obama’s $850 million library, under construction on Chicago’s South Side, has drawn criticism for its massive, obelisk-like structure.
Trump contrasted it with his own success building in the same city.
“I built a great building in Chicago, as you know — a big, beautiful building, one of the tallest buildings in the country — and we got it built very quickly, very well, and we used the construction workers of Chicago. They’re great workers. They’re great construction people. And I suggest that you get them involved,” he said.
“But they’re hundreds of millions of dollars over budget, and I think it stopped. I’m reading these terrible stories, but that’s the way our country was run under President Obama, too. Nobody knew it,” Trump added.
The “Obamalisk,” as critics have dubbed it, rises 225 feet and houses a community library and an NBA-sized basketball court. But the physical records of Obama’s presidency won’t be stored there — only digital copies.
Historians have raised alarms that the Obama Foundation, not the National Archives, will oversee access to the records — another example, critics say, of style over substance.
Watch the clip below:
President Trump on Barack Obama’s presidential library: “He needs help… It’s not too pretty… They’re stuck and he wanted only women and DEI to build it. Well, that's what he got… They're hundreds of millions over budget..s that's the way our country was run under President… pic.twitter.com/TmRmPpSE9c
— RedWave Press (@RedWave_Press) October 21, 2025
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