Barack Obama’s recent condemnation of the Trump administration’s supposed weaponization of cancel culture is a breathtaking display of hypocrisy, one that was immediately and rightfully called out by those who have personally suffered under the very system he helped create. Instead of condemning Jimmy Kimmel’s grotesque lie that a “MAGA conservative” murdered Charlie Kirk, a falsehood so egregious it led to his show being pulled from the air by major affiliates and Disney itself, Obama chose to defend the disgraced late-night host.
This defense is not just misguided; it is a deliberate attempt to obscure the truth and project his own administration’s sins onto his political opponents. Obama had the audacity to claim, “After years of complaining about cancel culture, the current administration has taken it to a new and dangerous level by routinely threatening regulatory action against media companies unless they muzzle or fire reporters and commentators it doesn’t like.” This statement is not only false but is a classic example of the left’s projection, accusing others of the very tactics they have perfected.
It was at this moment that Roseanne Barr, a woman who understands the brutal reality of left-wing cancellation better than most, delivered a stunning rebuke that exposed Obama’s monumental hypocrisy for the entire world to see. Barr, who was fired overnight in 2018 for a single tweet, directly reminded the former president of his own direct role in her career’s destruction. She fired back, “Remember when you and your wife called Bob Iger to have me fired?” This quote is a direct and damning indictment of the Obamas’ personal involvement in the cancel culture machinery. This is not a conspiracy theory; it is a matter of public record. In a 2019 interview with the Sunday Times Magazine, Barr revealed that Michelle Obama herself personally pressured ABC executives to axe her from the network. The executive who carried out the firing, former ABC president Channing Dungey, even went on to work directly with the Obamas at Netflix, further illustrating the incestuous relationship between the liberal media elite and the Democratic political class.
Remember when you and your wife called Bob Iger to have me fired? https://t.co/w5BcJ1bsLC
— Roseanne Barr (@therealroseanne) September 18, 2025
Barr has consistently maintained that while her tweet about Obama aide Valerie Jarrett was “stupid,” its intent was to critique the Obama administration’s policies toward Iran, not to engage in racial smears. Her firing was never about one misguided comment; it was a calculated political hit designed to silence a prominent and outspoken supporter of President Donald Trump. This incident is not an outlier but is part of a well-established and sinister pattern of cancel culture wielded exclusively as a cudgel against conservatives and dissenters by the leftist mob and their allies in the corporate media. The list of victims is long and telling: Gina Carano was fired from The Mandalorian for her so-called “wrongthink.” Megyn Kelly was ousted from NBC for a simple commentary on a Halloween costume. Comedy legend Dave Chappelle was targeted by Netflix employees for daring to tell jokes they deemed “transphobic.” Even Joe Rogan was smeared and nearly canceled for hosting open discussions on COVID-19.
The war on free speech extends beyond individuals to entire platforms. Tucker Carlson, the most-watched news host in America, was taken off Fox News after coordinated advertiser pressure campaigns. Parler, a free speech alternative to Twitter, was wiped from the internet in a coordinated attack by Apple, Google, and Amazon. Author J.K. Rowling has been blacklisted and vilified by the media for the simple act of defending women’s rights. MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell was banned from Twitter and dropped by retailers for his unwavering support of President Trump. Even media outlets like The Gateway Pundit have been banned from Google AdSense, Amazon Ads, and PayPal for their reporting on election integrity and COVID-19 origins. This is the true face of cancel culture: a ruthless, coordinated effort to deplatform, de-bank, and destroy any voice that challenges the approved left-wing narrative.
This is precisely the kind of government coercion that the First Amendment was designed to prevent — and media companies need to start standing up rather than capitulating to it. https://t.co/gOjqFnGv0I
— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) September 18, 2025
Obama’s pretense of being a defender of a free press is further demolished by the history of his own administration’s actions against journalists. As former congressional candidate Jack Lombardi pointed out, it was under Obama’s presidency that the government waged a direct war on the free press. In October 2009, his White House attempted to exclude Fox News from a pooled interview, a move so blatant that other networks refused to participate until Fox was included. In May 2013, the Obama Department of Justice secretly seized two months of Associated Press reporters’ phone records, an intrusion the AP itself called “massive and unprecedented.” That very same month, the DOJ infamously labeled Fox News reporter James Rosen a “co-conspirator” in a leak investigation, a chilling tactic used to obtain his private emails and phone records. Even the FCC, under Obama, floated a “Critical Information Needs” study that aimed to directly monitor and question newsrooms, a plan only scrapped after a massive First Amendment backlash. This is the real record of the man now posturing as a free speech champion.