Former US President Donald Trump delivered some surprise compliments for his predecessor Barack Obama, and said he got along best with “tyrants” like Russia’s Vladimir Putin, China’s Xi Jinping, and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un while in office. “I liked him,” Trump said of the former president, eliciting boos from the crowd on the first night of the History Tour with former FOX News host Bill O’Reilly in Sunrise, Florida, on Saturday. Trump praised the Democrat as “smart and sharp,” according to The Sun Sentinel. However, Trump also criticised Obama for causing “tremendous division” and hatred in the country.

Trump joked that Obama liked golf too much to secretly run the country for Biden, as claimed by some conspiracy theorists. Trump repeated unproven claims about the 2020 election having been “stolen” from him.

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“Our country in my opinion is no longer respected,” he said, according to the Sentinel. “Every country in the world takes advantage of the United States.”

Trump’s praise for Obama comes after a long running feud that saw the pair take potshots at each other for years.

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In 2011, Trump first began promoting the so-called right wing “birther” theory that Obama was ineligible to serve as president as he had been born in Kenya. That campaign prompted Obama to produce his birth certificate showing he was born in Hawaii, but Trump dismissed the document as “fraud.”

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At the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner that year, Obama mocked Trump, who was then teasing the idea of running for president, with his “long-form birth video,” which ended up being a clip from “The Lion King.”

He then teased Trump about his “credentials and breadth of experience” as the host of Celebrity Apprentice and the wide range of decisions that came with the role including firing actor Gary Busey and choosing between the boys’ and girls’ teams.