The headline is an actual tweet from Newsweek. Interesting that they never noticed or complained about it when the Obamas were living like elitist, one-percenters on the taxpayer’s dime for the past 8 years.
There are valid reasons to be concerned by a president’s earnings, including after their tenure in the Oval Office. Where a former commander-in-chief earns his or her income–and the company they choose to keep after serving as the leader of the free world–could speak to their basic values in a way policies and legislation cannot.
So when some Americans, including Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, saw former President Barack Obama accepting $400,000 speeches from Wall Street, signing book deals worth $65 million and vacationing with billionaires off the coast of Tahiti in a $300 million yacht, you can bet they were perplexed.
How could it be that Obama, the smooth-talking Democratic candidate in 2008 who slammed Wall Street greed and resonated with the working class in a way his party has since been unable to authentically recreate, is living his post-presidential life like an elitist one percenter?
Obama will receive an annual pension of over $200,000, after vetoing a bill passed by Congress in 2016 that would have capped each former president’s pension to that threshold. He raked in $400,000–the equivalent to his annual presidential salary–for a 90-minute interview Thursday in midtown Manhattan, where he spoke with a presidential historian on things like income inequality and civic engagement. He’s set to earn another $400,000 for a 60-minute speech during a conference hosted by the investment firm Cantor Fitzgerald.
And he doesn’t plan on slowing down any time soon: Harry Walker Agency, which represents the former president and his wife along the speaking circuit, is scheduling new appointments for the Obamas every single week.