LONDON — Former President Barack Obama sharply criticized President Donald Trump on Wednesday, accusing him of “violence against the truth” for suggesting a link between Tylenol use during pregnancy and autism.
Speaking from a stage in London’s O2 Arena, Obama delivered a rare and pointed critique of his successor, warning that the Trump administration’s claims risk undermining public health.
“We have the spectacle of my successor in the Oval Office, making broad claims around certain drugs and autism that have been continuously disproved,” Obama said during an on-stage Q&A before a crowd of 14,000.
The remarks were part of a series of pointed observations from Obama, who last week described the U.S. as being at an “inflection point” following the killing of Republican activist Charlie Kirk. He suggested that the U.K. and other countries are similarly navigating precarious moments.
Obama’s comments specifically addressed Trump’s recent warnings that pregnant women should avoid acetaminophen, the active ingredient in Tylenol, citing what Trump called a “very increased” risk of autism—a claim contradicted by decades of research.
“The degree to which that undermines public health, the degree to which that can do harm to women who are pregnant, the degree to which that creates anxiety for parents who do have children who are autistic—which, by the way, itself is subject to a spectrum, and a lot of what is being trumpeted as these massive increases actually have to do with a broadening of the criteria across that spectrum so that people can actually get services and help,” Obama said. “All of that is violence against the truth.”
He also directed some criticism toward political allies, arguing they had been too complacent in countering populist trends both in the U.S. and globally. “Much of the world reached a point in the late 20th century, where people realized blood and soil nationalism doesn’t work, and dehumanizing people who are different than us doesn’t work,” he said.
Reflecting on the current political climate, Obama added, “We got complacent. We got smug.” In the wake of backlash against inequality, globalization, migration, and bureaucracy, he warned, “sometimes right now it feels we may be backsliding towards that older way of thinking about the world.”
Obama noted a growing push among certain leaders—including Trump and Vladimir Putin—toward a vision in which “we the people is just some people, not all people—and where there are some pretty clear hierarchies in terms of status and who ranks where.” He stressed that the “creeping authoritarian tendencies” in such nations must be resisted.
Turning to technology, Obama cautioned that social media platforms, once designed to connect people, have increasingly relied on “spectacle, anger and grief” for monetization. He also warned of the “significant risk” that artificial intelligence could be misused by governments, non-state actors, or even individuals, including as a tool for surveillance or the creation of dangerous biological threats.
“Pandora’s box is opened,” he said. “We’re going to have to rearrange work and we’re going to have to rearrange the social safety net… and we’re not even having that conversation.”
Among those attending the event was London Mayor Sadiq Khan, whom Trump had called “terrible” during a recent United Nations address.
