Obama laughs as he hints Colbert could perform better than Trump as president, says 'bar has changed'

Former President Barack Obama laughed as he slighted President Donald Trump during an interview with late-night host Stephen Colbert on Tuesday — suggesting the liberal comedian would make a better president.

"We're gonna have to do some work to return to this basic norm, and we probably now have to codify it. The White House shouldn't be able to direct the Attorney General to go around prosecuting whoever the president wants," Obama said, as the audience applauded.

Obama said the president shouldn't "politicize our military," again without naming Trump directly. He added, "A good policy that I'd like to see followed is that the President of the United States shouldn't have a bunch of side hustles, that there's companies and foreign entities can invest in."

"How much of that is just jealous that you didn't think of selling a sneaker? Because your sneakers would have flown. You know that, right? You would have banked coin," Colbert joked.

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Obama laughed and said he thought this was an "obvious principle."

Colbert also noted his late-night show is set to end in May. He said people have told him to run for president.

"For the record, I think it's a stupid idea. How dumb do you think it is for people to say that I should run for president?" Colbert asked.

Obama responded, "The bar has changed."

"I think that you could perform significantly better than some folks that we've seen," Obama said, laughing.

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Colbert asked if that was an endorsement, and the former president clarified that it wasn't.

Colbert also spoke with Obama about the direction of the Democratic Party, specifically regarding the ongoing rift between the liberal and the progressive wings of the party.

"So you have great leaders. You have people like (Virginia Governor) Abigail Spanberger and (New Jersey Governor) Mikie Sherrill, very centrist. But then you have further left, like AOC and Zohran Mamdani," Colbert said, sparking cheers from his audience after name-dropping the self-described democratic socialists.

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Obama then shrugged off concerns that there was a true divide between both wings of the Democratic Party.

"I'm not so worried about this so-called rift between the left and liberals, as you described it," Obama told Colbert. "Because I think that within the Democratic Party and I would argue a bunch of independents and even some Republicans as well, there's an overarching belief in equality, fairness, if you work then you should be able to make a living wage and support a family and retire with dignity... There are a bunch of things that we agree on. And it's really more of a question of, what are the specific things that we have to do."

Fox News' Joseph Wulfsohn contributed to this report.