Barack Obama

POTUS 44

2026-05-06

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Who is this?

Barack Hussein Obama II (born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the first African American president. Obama previously served as a U.S. senator representing Illinois from 2005 to 2008 and as an Illinois state senator from 1997 to 2004. Born in Honolulu, Obama graduated from Columbia University in 1983 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science and later worked as a community organizer in Chicago. In 1988, Obama enrolled in Harvard Law School, where he was the first Black president of the Harvard Law Review. He became a civil rights attorney and an academic, teaching constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School from 1992 to 2004. In 1996, Obama was elected to represent the 13th district in the Illinois Senate, a position he held until 2004, when he successfully ran for the U.S. Senate. In the 2008 presidential election, after a close primary campaign against Hillary Clinton, he was nominated by the Democratic Party for president. Obama selected Joe Biden as his running mate and defeated Republican nominee John McCain and his running mate Sarah Palin. Obama was awarded the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize for efforts in international diplomacy, a decision that drew both praise and criticism. During his first term, his administration responded to the 2008 financial crisis with measures including the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 to address the Great Recession; a partial extension of the Bush tax cuts; legislation to reform health care; and the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, a major financial regulation reform bill. Obama also appointed Supreme Court justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, the former being the first Hispanic American on the Supreme Court. Obama also oversaw the end of the Iraq War and ordered Operation Neptune Spear, the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, who was the leader of Al-Qaeda and was responsible for the September 11 attacks. He downplayed Bush's counterinsurgency model by expanding air strikes and making extensive use of special forces, while encouraging greater reliance on host-government militaries. Obama also ordered the 2011 military intervention in Libya to implement United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973, which contributed to the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi. Obama defeated Republican opponent Mitt Romney and his running mate Paul Ryan in the 2012 presidential election. In his second term, Obama advocated for gun control in the wake of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, took steps to combat climate change by signing the Paris Agreement on climate change and an executive order to limit carbon emissions, and presided over the implementation of the Affordable Care Act and other legislation passed during his first term. Obama also initiated sanctions against Russia following its invasion in Ukraine and again after Russian inter

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1961
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Obama Takes Shots At Trump’s ‘Politicization’ Of DOJ and ‘Side Hustles’ In Colbert Interview - Forbes Obama Takes Shots At Trump’s ‘Politicization’ Of DOJ and ‘Side Hustles’ In Colbert Interview Forbes