President Donald Trump on Feb. 19 accused former President Barack Obama of revealing classified information when he offered his opinion on the existence of extraterrestrial life in a recent podcast interview.

“Something that got a lot of attention this week: Barack Obama said that aliens are real. Have you seen any evidence of non-human visitors to Earth?” Fox News reporter Peter Doocy asked Trump during a press gaggle on Air Force One.

Trump responded by accusing Obama of giving “classified information” in the interview, and said, “He’s not supposed to be doing that.”

The exchange was spurred by a Feb. 14 episode of the “No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen” podcast, in which Cohen asked Obama, “Are aliens real?”

“They’re real, but I haven’t seen them, and they’re not being kept in ... Area 51. There’s no underground facility, unless there’s this enormous conspiracy, and they hid it from the president of the United States,” Obama said.

After Cohen asked him what question he first wanted answered when he became president in 2009, Obama said, “Where are the aliens?”

Obama’s office did not respond to a request for comment by publication time.

During their back-and-forth on Air Force One on Wednesday, Doocy followed up on Trump’s initial response, asking him if that meant aliens “are real.”

“Well, I don’t know if they’re real or not. I can tell you he gave classified information. He’s not supposed to be doing that,” Trump said. “He made a big mistake. He took it out of classified information.”

The president added that he does not have an opinion on the existence of aliens, but noted “a lot of people do” before asking Doocy if he believed in it.

“Well, if the president can declassify anything that he wants to, so if you want to make an announcement,” Doocy said.

Trump interrupted the reporter and replied, “I may get [Obama] out of trouble by declassifying.”

After Obama’s comments went viral, the former president clarified his views in an Instagram post on Feb. 15.

“I was trying to stick with the spirit of the speed round, but since it’s gotten attention, let me clarify. Statistically, the universe is so vast that the odds are good there’s life out there,” Obama said.

“But the distances between solar systems are so great that the chances we’ve been visited by aliens is low, and I saw no evidence during my presidency that extraterrestrials have made contact with us. Really!”

Trump has been repeatedly asked about his opinions on “non-human life” in recent history, including during media appearances throughout his 2024 presidential campaign.

“Am I a believer? No, I can’t say I am,” Trump said during a podcast interview in June 2025. “But I have met with people, serious people, that say there’s some really strange things flying around out there.”