*Fresh from his island vacations, Barack Obama will appear in his Chicago hometown on Monday (Apr 24) for his first public appearance since leaving the White House, his office announced Friday.
No. 44 will end his three-months off the grid with his participation in a town hall-style discussion with young people on “community organizing and civic engagement” at the University of Chicago, near the site of his planned presidential library.
“This event is part of President Obama’s post-presidency goal to encourage and support the next generation of leaders driven by strengthening communities around the country and the world,” his office said in a statement.
The event marks the start of Obama’s return to the public eye. He’ll be in Boston next month to accept the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award. The former president will also meet with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin, a visit that coincides with President Trump’s first overseas trip to a NATO summit in Belgium.
The former POTUS has been island hopping since leaving office on Jan. 20, jetting from Palm Springs, Calif., to a Caribbean island with English billionaire Richard Branson, to an exclusive resort in French Polynesia.
According to TheHill.com, Obama will not use these public events to roast his successor, even after Donald Trump accused him, without evidence, of wiretapping him during the presidential race and blamed him for a series of foreign crises.
“It’s not in anyone’s interest … for [Obama] to become the face of the resistance or narrate the Trump presidency,” one person said earlier this month. “He’s acutely aware that when he speaks, he sucks up all the oxygen, and that suppresses the next generation of leaders from rising.”
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