“Barack Obama used to be confident America would survive Donald Trump. He’s not so sure anymore,” CNN reports.

“The 44th president can still draw a crowd of thousands or dial Gavin Newsom’s cell phone to strategize about the California governor’s redistricting push. But friends who talk to him say it’s become clear that eight years out of the White House, darkness and anxiety have crept in on Obama’s message of hope and change.”

“After deliberately stepping back during the Biden years — while remaining the party’s biggest fundraiser even then — Obama and his aides are reworking his longstanding strategy of minimizing his public presence to allow the next generation of Democrats to emerge. Trump’s moves to block Democrats from power since his return to the White House and his calls to indict or shut down liberal institutions might, Obama fears, deny that next generation the chance.”

Former President Barack Obama ripped fellow Democrats over their messaging, the Washington Examiner reports.

Said Obama: “You can’t constantly lecture people without acknowledging that you’ve got some blind spots, too, and that life’s messy.”

He added: “I think this was a fault of some progressive language, was almost asserting a holier-than-thou superiority that’s not that different from what we used to joke about coming from the Right Moral Majority and a certain fundamentalism about how to think about stuff that I think was dangerous. You can’t just be a scold all the time.”

“Former President Barack Obama suggested on Tuesday that President Trump and his allies were using the assassination of the conservative activist Charlie Kirk to stoke division and silence debate about Mr. Kirk’s ideas,” the New York Times reports.

Said Obama: “When I hear not just our current president, but his aides, who have a history of calling political opponents ‘vermin,’ enemies who need to be ‘targeted,’ that speaks to a broader problem that we have right now, and something that we’re going to have to grapple with — all of us.”

“Drawing more of a contrast with Mr. Trump, he referred to his own presidency and to past Republican leaders he said had believed in unifying a fractious country.”

He added: “I think George W. Bush believed that. I believe that people who I ran against — I know John McCain believed it. I know Mitt Romney believed it. What I’m describing is not a Democratic value or Republican value. It is an American value. And I think at moments like this, when tensions are high, then part of the job of the president is to pull people together.”

Playbook: “Trump’s second term has thus far been something of an eight-month mission to test out the limits of his power — one in which he has ripped through the norms that have hemmed in his presidency. In response, Trump’s actions as president are testing another limit: the willingness of a former president to stay out of the political fray.”

“Former President Barack Obama has, in recent days, reengaged in the political moment in ways broadly uncommon for a former Oval Office occupant.”

“To former aides who worked in Barack Obama’s White House, the Trump administration’s allegations of “treason” carried the stench of desperation from a president straining to shift the focus from a burgeoning scandal around Jeffrey Epstein,” NBC News reports.

“Still, they’re grappling with how to contain the unprecedented accusations National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard has leveled, even as they dismiss them as asinine.”

“Former President Barack Obama’s office issued a rare rebuke of President Donald Trump on Tuesday after the president accused his predecessor of having committed ‘treason’ and rigging the 2016 and 2020 elections,” NBC News reports.

Said an Obama spokesperson: “Out of respect for the office of the presidency, our office does not normally dignify the constant nonsense and misinformation flowing out of this White House with a response. But these claims are outrageous enough to merit one. These bizarre allegations are ridiculous and a weak attempt at distraction.”

Former President Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama are laughing off the divorce rumors that have plagued them for much of the past year, Good Morning America reports.

Mark Leibovich: “No matter how brazen Trump becomes, the most effective communicator in the Democratic Party continues to opt for minimal communication. His ‘audacity of hope’ presidency has given way to the fierce lethargy of semi-retirement.”

President Trump took shots at former President Barack Obama’s Presidential Center in Chicago, calling it “a disaster” and blaming “woke” construction workers, CBS News reports.

The former first lady said on a podcast that people “couldn’t even fathom that I was making a choice for myself, that they had to assume that my husband and I are divorcing,” the New York Times reports.

Barack Obama called on universities and law firms to stand up to intimidation from President Donald Trump’s administration and urged Americans to prepare to “possibly sacrifice” in support of democratic values, the Washington Post reports.

Barack Obama called out divisiveness and polarization as “one of the greatest challenges of our time,” as he avoided any specific political references in his first public remarks since the election, Politico reports.

Obama didn’t utter the names of Donald Trump or Kamala Harris and stayed away from politics.