Former President Obama steps back into public life, trying to avoid one word: Trump

CHICAGO - Former President Barack Obama studiously avoided any mention of President Donald Trump or the assault on his own legacy as he returned to his adoptive home on Monday for his first public event since leaving the White House.

What might have been a moment for Obama to challenge Trump's wiretapping accusations, or to assail the Republican agenda, instead became a college seminar on how to engage with a new generation of young people - and urge them to participate in political life.

“The single most important thing I can do,” the former president told an audience of students, is to “help in any way I can prepare the next generation of leadership to take up the baton and to take their own crack at changing the world.”

Avoiding Trump was no accident.

Obama has decided - for now, at least - to steer clear of any criticism of his successor, in part out of gratitude that former President George W. Bush took that same approach. But Obama and his advisers also have concluded that confronting Trump now would be a political mistake.

If Obama were to challenge the president directly, they believe, the former president would become a foil for Trump's efforts to rally his supporters. That could end up helping Trump enact policies that Obama opposes.

As a result, the session at the University of Chicago, where Obama once taught constitutional law, was devoid of any Obama-Trump tension. Seated on a stage with six successful young people, Obama was relaxed and casual, musing about his political life story and offering a few jokes.

“So, what's been going on while I've been gone?” Obama said, chuckling, at the start. Later, he hinted at the current political climate by recalling his 2004 observation about there not being a “red” America or a “blue” America during his speech at the Democratic National Convention that year.

“That was an aspirational comment,” he acknowledged, prompting laughter from the panel onstage and the audience. “Obviously, it's not true when it comes to our politics and our civic life.”

Obama has spent the three months since Inauguration Day on an extended vacation even as his staff begins setting up an office in Washington and planning continues on his presidential library in Chicago. He is also starting to work on a memoir.

But on Monday, the former president began what will be a series of public appearances in the United States and Europe. His next scheduled public event is a May 7 speech at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston, where he will accept the library's Profile in Courage award.

Obama spoke with the young people onstage here about civic engagement, community organizing and the importance of not withdrawing from the challenges facing society.

The participants were free to ask whatever they wanted, and Obama invited a couple of questions toward the end of the event. But they steered clear of asking any pointed questions about the current political situation in Washington and anything that might have been interpreted as a critique of Trump.