Obama mocks Trump for refusing to accept his 2020 election loss in a rare public rebuke

• Obama mocked Trump for refusing to accept his 2020 election loss in a rare public rebuke.
• He said that when he lost his first election, he accepted defeat rather than inciting a mob to storm the Capitol.

Former President Barack Obama mocked his successor Donald Trump for refusing to accept having lost the 2020 presidential election.

While speaking at a rally in Atlanta, Georgia, on Friday, Obama said that the first time he ran for Congress, he got "whooped" and "had a big L on my forehead."

"Let me tell you, I was frustrated too. You know what I didn't do, though? I didn't claim that the election was rigged. I didn't try to stop votes from being counted. I didn't incite a mob to storm the Capitol."

Obama said that instead, he chose to learn from the loss and used it to run a better campaign the next time.

While Obama did not directly name him, it was a thinly veiled dig at Trump, who has continued to baselessly allege that the 2020 election was fraudulent and whose supporters stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021.

It was a rare moment of criticism from the former president, who has largely refrained from publicly rebuking his successor since leaving office.

The few moments where Obama has publicly criticized Trump have typically been while campaigning for Democratic candidates ahead of elections.

Obama appeared at the Friday rally to campaign for Democratic candidates Sen. Raphael Warnock, who is running against Republican Herschel Walker, and gubernatorial hopeful Stacey Abrams, who is aiming to unseat incumbent Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, ahead of the upcoming midterm elections.

The former president urged rally-goers not to put their "head in the sand" and to get out and vote for the "incredible Georgia Democratic ticket."

"If enough of us make our voices heard, I promise you things will get better. We will heal what ails us, we will restore our democracy, we will build a country that is more fair and more just and more equal and more free," he said.