Obama to receive $400k for first paid speech: Report
Barack Obama will get $400,000 for one of his first paid speeches, a new report claims, overshadowing the former US president’s much-publicized return to the public eye.
Obama would be paid the hefty sum for addressing a healthcare conference in September, Fox News reported Monday.
Cantor Fitzgerald, a New York City-based financial services firm that organizes the gathering, asked Obama to deliver the keynote speech particularly because of his signature healthcare law the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare.
Obama’s successor Donald Trump has pledged to “ease the burden of Obamacare" which covers some 20 million Americans.
The news of Obama’s highly-paid speech emerged shortly after he broke his silence more than three months after Trump’s inauguration in late January by giving a "free" speech at the University of Chicago.
Trump’s predecessor took part in a Monday roundtable discussion with a group of young people, where he avoided any political commentary or criticism of the new Republican head of state.
Obama also chose to remain silent towards Trump’s recent accusations of wiretapping his Manhattan tower in the run-up to the 2016 presidential election.
This was the former Illinois senator's first public appearance after spending nearly 100 days relaxing at various locations around the world.
Obama has also been planning building a library and community center for his foundation in Chicago.
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He is not the first Democratic president to make big money from his speeches after leaving the White House.
It was revealed last year that former President Bill Clinton and her wife, former Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, had made $153 million off paid speeches from 2001 to 2015.
According to CNN’s analysis, in total, the couple gave 729 speeches from February 2001 until May 2015 -- when Hillary launched her presidential campaign -- for an average payout of $210,795 per address.
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