Former President Obama’s half brother is backing former President Trump for president and spoke to Fox News Digital about why he left the Democratic Party and why he believes Trump is ‘going to win’ in November.

‘I’m supporting President Trump. I’ve been a supporter, a supporter since 2016. I like him,’ Malik Obama told Fox News Digital on Monday. ‘I like the way he comes across. I like his demeanor. I like his straightforwardness. And I think he’s good for the country. And, he put the country back on course. Yes. I’m a Republican, so he’s my nominee.‘

Malik and Barack are both sons of Barack Hussein Obama Sr. and Malik was the best man at Barack’s 1992 wedding, although the two have grown estranged since. 

‘The main thing is making America strong, you know, in the eyes of the world. And Trump is a strong person. He’s known for his mettle, his strength and I like that,’ Malik said. ‘He’s a no-nonsense guy. He’s a businessman, so he knows, you know, how to run a big organization. And the Democrats, I fell out with them because they’re hypocrites.’

Obama explained that the hypocrisy that made him leave the Democratic Party involved the way Democrats have treated Trump and Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. 

‘They’ve been treating Mr. President Trump horribly,’ Obama said. ‘I’m not seeing anything like that in my life. You know, they’re going after him for, you know, going through tooth and nail. But using the judiciary to try to lock him up and keep him off the ballot, and I’ve not seen anything like that in my life. So the way they’re treating a former president of the United States of America is despicable to me.‘

Obama said that in 2024 he believes ‘Democrats will be there doing the same thing they did in 2016.’

‘They did it with Hillary, Hillary Clinton, and they were lying. And, you know, they’re just hypocrites. And, you know, they’re not straightforward and OK, I was a Democrat at that time until, you know, they started lying and, about the emails and I saw through, you know, they’re, they’re trying to put Hillary Clinton through, by devious means,’ he continued. ‘And then Trump came out and called them out. He called them out straight to their face. And I like that. And a light bulb just came on from my head. And I just said, ‘Yeah, this is it.’ So I’ve been a big Trump follower since then.’

Obama also took issue with President Biden and the way his party handled transitioning to VP Harris.

‘Then you had Joe Biden, old man,’ Obama said. ‘He can’t even find the door even if you showed him, and he holds on until the last minute and he is the nominee. And all of a sudden, they drop off and they put Kamala Harris. Come on Harris. She’s like a joke. I see the way she behaves and everything, and I don’t think that she’s the right person. Maybe they should have decided to put Michelle Obama instead.‘

Obama said his half brother Barack Obama and Harris are ‘cut from the same cloth’ and ‘wishy-washy,’ especially when it comes to abortion and immigration.

Going around, fooling around with biology and things like that,’ Obama said. ‘I think that is evil. But they stand for that. And I think that is abominable, you know, that they would go ahead and support such things. She’s talking about freedom of, what is it? What she’s talking about reproductive freedom and reproductive freedom is abortion. 

‘You know, giving somebody the right to go ahead and kill a baby,’ he added. ‘I don’t agree with it. I find it really abominable that they would do such a thing.’

‘Even the border issue with the immigration and illegal immigrants coming into the United States. It took me forever to get my children [through] and I came in legally to the United States. I had a green card. The papers were put through, and I went through the process, and I was a legal resident for a long time until I decided to become a U.S. citizen. And that also was a process. You have to go and file and apply and do the things you’re supposed to do,’ Obama continued. ‘And then, my children are now in the USA and had to go put in the papers for them and then legally. And then you got people coming in, illegals and being allowed to vote and things like that. And, and that to me is, you know, that’s a no no. I can’t stand for that. And I can’t support that kind of policy.’

Obama’s half-brother went on to tell Fox News Digital that he believes former President Obama is ‘fake’ and ‘did zilch’ for his family and that’s part of the reason Trump is so appealing in comparison, because he ‘doesn’t beat around the bush.’

‘Yeah, we’re going to win,’ Obama said about what his message to Trump would be. 

‘I just say President Trump, you’re going to win in November 2024,’ he concluded. ‘You’re going to win. And I think you’re going to win by a landslide because all the hype that’s going on with Kamala and she can’t even interview, and I’m waiting for tomorrow, and everybody’s going to see that she can’t interview. All she does is laugh and move.’

As former President Trump faces backlash from Democrats over ties to the Heritage Foundation’s ‘Project 2025,’ the Biden-Harris administration has been working hand in hand with a prominent liberal think tank through a revolving door of employees working to turn progressive policy recommendations into executive actions and legislation, which could come back to haunt the Harris campaign.

The Center for American Progress (CAP) has been labeled the ‘most influential’ think tank in the Biden era, while the group publicly boasts that it has turned at least 10 policy recommendations into ‘executive action and policy legislation.’

Patrick Gaspard, the current president of CAP, has visited the Biden White House at least 20 times between December 2021 and January 2024, which included five solo meetings with high-ranking Biden officials.

CAP’s ties to the Biden White House go even deeper than Gaspard, as at least 60 alumni from the think tank have joined the administration, including Neera Tanden, who previously served as president of CAP and has served in multiple roles in the Biden administration, including senior adviser and staff secretary. 

She was promoted in May 2023 to the ‘Assistant to the President and Domestic Policy Advisor’ titles, replacing Susan Rice, according to a White House press release.

President Biden also hired CAP founder and chairman John Podesta as a senior White House clean energy czar in 2022. Podesta was tasked with overseeing roughly $370 billion in climate spending appropriated by the Inflation Reduction Act. 

The former Hillary Clinton campaign chairman was then tapped by Biden earlier this year to serve as his top climate diplomat after John Kerry stepped down to help with campaign efforts, which received backlash from top Republicans due to concerns over his ties to China dating back to his CAP days. 

Fox News Digital first reported on his connection to top CCP official Tung Chee-hwa, who he repeatedly referred to as his ‘friend’ and took several calls from.

CAP’s influence within the Biden White House began months before he entered office. In late 2020, a half dozen of the group’s employees joined Biden’s transition team in the Treasury, Federal Reserve, Labor Department, Interior Department, National Security Council and Office of the U.S. Trade Representative. 

CAP’s organization appears primed to push a policy agenda on several key issues on the progressive wish list if the Biden administration, now led by Vice President Kamala Harris on the presidential ticket, were to continue into a second term. 

CAP has voiced support for both setting term limits for Supreme Court justices and packing the court, which are two efforts being pushed by Demand Justice, a left-wing dark money group that Harris’ senior campaign adviser Brian Fallon co-founded and left less than a year ago. 

The liberal think tank has signed onto multiple letters pushed by Demand Justice, which was reportedly planning a $10 million offensive against conservative Supreme Court justices this year ‘on a range of activities, from conducting opposition research on potential Supreme Court picks to advocating for ethics reforms for the high court,’ Politico reported.

‘The Supreme Court has taken off its mask this term by creating unconstitutional de facto immunity for future presidents who act illegally and by gutting the ability of public agencies and Congress to protect Americans from abuse by right-wing special interests,’ CAP states on its website.

CAP has pushed a variety of other left-wing efforts, which include censoring speech it believes to be ‘misinformation,’ taxpayer-funded student loan bailouts, taxpayer-funded reparations, DEI mandates, federal taxpayer funds for abortion by eliminating the Hyde Amendment, and phasing out gas-powered cars.

‘With skyrocketing profits and expanding domestic manufacturing, U.S. automakers have everything they need to help the country switch from fossil fuel-powered vehicles to electric,’ CAP said in a 2024 post, despite multiple reports highlighting how consumers have complained about the cost and lack of charging stations.

CAP’s influence on Biden also spread to his messaging on the campaign trail before he dropped out of the race. In 2022, the Washington Post reported that Biden’s move to label Trump as ‘ultra MAGA’ was the result of a six-month research project from the CAP Action Fund that was headed by his top aide Anita Dunn, who has performed consulting work for CAP.

CAP Action Fund’s president, Navin Nayak, has visited the Biden White House at least a couple dozen times, a Fox News Digital review of White House visitor logs found.

Biden’s former chief of staff Ron Klain, who was on the CAP Action Fund board for several years, has also repeatedly praised their efforts on his X account.

VP Harris has worked with the Center for American Progress dating back to her time as California attorney general, when she joined the group for a press conference via telephone. She has also participated in several events hosted by the liberal think tank and her sister, Maya Harris, joined as a senior fellow, according to a 2013 press release. 

Tanden said, ‘Maya has worked tirelessly in many different arenas to ensure that the United States is a more inclusive country and that all Americans can live up to their potential’ and looked forward to her involvement with CAP.

Despite its extensive connections to the Biden White House, CAP blasts Project 2025 on its website as a ‘far-right assault on America’ that it claims will ‘serve as a road map’ for a ‘far-right presidential administration.’

A CAP spokesperson dismissed the Heritage Foundation as ‘no longer a think tank’ in a statement to Fox News Digital on Sunday.

‘When it comes to the Heritage Foundation and their work, one needs to look no further than yesterday’s New York Times story exposing Heritage creating fake digital content and pushing lies about election integrity,’ the spokesperson said. ‘Couple that with Heritage’s embrace of authoritarianism and their president threatening to launch a potentially violent ‘second American Revolution’ if it doesn’t get its way, and I think it’s safe to say that Heritage is on an island of its own. This is no longer a think tank.’

As a presidential candidate, Harris has repeatedly criticized Trump over Project 2025 as recently as last week when she ran an ad linking Trump to the project.

While Project 2025 is staffed with several high-level individuals who have previously worked with Trump, he has strongly denied having any direct role with the group.

A Project 2025 spokesperson told Fox News Digital on Sunday that ‘Project 2025 does not speak for Donald Trump or his campaign’ and is ‘continuing our decades-long legacy of preparing policy and personnel recommendations for the next conservative President.’

‘The Heritage Foundation has been producing its Mandate for Leadership since 1980, and President Reagan handed out copies of the book to his cabinet at their first meeting,’ the spokesperson continued. ‘The Left always prepares recommendations for liberal presidents, and they are simply upset that two can play this game.’

‘The only reason that the Left is in a tailspin over Project 2025 is that it has winning ideas that the American people support, while their own recommendations, which are currently destroying our country, are wildly unpopular,’ the spokesperson added.

Trump campaign spokesperson Danielle Alvarez told Fox News Digital earlier this year that ‘Agenda 47 and President Trump’s RNC Platform are the only policies endorsed by President Trump for a second term.’

‘Team Biden and the DNC are LYING and fear-mongering because they have NOTHING else to offer the American people,’ she added. ‘Remember this is the same group that lied to Americans and hid Joe Biden’s cognitive decline all these years.’ 

Fox News Digital reached out to the Biden White House and Harris campaign for comment but did not receive a response.

Fox News Digital’s Joe Schoffstall and Thomas Catenacci contributed to this report

The White House pushed back on a report released Sunday by Republican lawmakers criticizing President Biden’s chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, calling the report partisan and offering ‘little or nothing new.’

Texas Rep. Mike McCaul, the Republican chair of the committee, released a GOP-led report disputing Biden’s claims that his hands were tied to the agreement former President Trump had made with the Taliban establishing a deadline for U.S. withdrawal for the summer of 2021. It also said State Department officials had no plan for helping Americans and allies out while there were still troops in the region to protect them.

McCaul’s report also noted the failure to adequately respond to terror threats ahead of the ISIS-K bombing at Abbey Gate at the Kabul airport that killed 13 U.S. service members and more than 150 Afghan civilians, and that the Taliban likely had access after the withdrawal to $7 billion in abandoned U.S. weapons, and up to $57 million in U.S. funds that were initially given to the Afghan government.

On Monday, White House National Security Council communications adviser John Kirby defended Biden’s handling of the withdrawal from Afghanistan during a White House briefing.

Kirby told reporters the GOP report comes two years after their first report, adding, ‘This one says little or nothing new.’

He then provided a rundown of what he called ‘actual facts’ that he considered important.

‘First, on the very day this administration took office, the Taliban was in the strongest position it had been in years. The Afghan government, the weakest,’ Kirby said. ‘The Trump administration cut a deal called the Doha Agreement that mandated a complete U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, and yes, that included Bagram Air Base, by the end of May 2021.’

Part of the deal was that 5,000 Taliban fighters would be released from prison, and in return, the Taliban agreed not to attack U.S. troops, he explained.

Kirby referred to testimony from former commander of U.S. Central Command, Gen. Frank McKenzie, who said the Doha deal had a really pernicious effect on the Afghan government, and it demoralized them.

‘They knew right then and there that America was on its way out,’ Kirby said. ‘Indeed, in October of 2020, then-President Trump ordered his military to rush the exit from Afghanistan and have everybody leave by Christmas of that year.

‘President Biden, for his part, faced a stark choice when he came to office: Abide by the flawed agreement and end America’s longest war, or blow up the deal, extend the war, and see a much smaller contingent of American troops back in combat with the Taliban,’ Kirby added. ‘He chose the former and was able to buy additional time to prepare for that withdrawal all the way into summer, and we, as a nation, are safer for it.’

Kirby then brought up what he called ‘falsehoods’ from the report. The first issue he found was that there was in fact planning for evacuations beginning in the spring of 2021.

Kirby said the Department of Defense proposed additional military units in the region so when a decision was reached to evacuate, they would be poised to respond.

He also said there was no point in securing Bagram Air Base during the evacuation because it would have required thousands of additional U.S. troops. It would also have required a ‘dangerous trek by evacuees’ across Taliban territory, making the evacuation even more difficult.

Kirby also mentioned that there was no handover of U.S. equipment to the Taliban.

‘That equipment had been provided to Afghan security forces appropriately and with congressional approval over the course of two decades of war,’ he said. ‘That equipment was left by those Afghan forces when they surrendered or stopped fighting.’

Finally, Kirby told reporters the Biden administration did not deceive, lie or fail to be transparent during, or after the withdrawal.

‘We did the best we could every day to keep the American people informed of what was happening,’ he said. ‘We conducted our own after-action reports and shared those, too, with the public.’

Fox News Digital’s Landon Mion contributed to this report.