President-elect Donald Trump answers questions from the media during transition team meetings at the Mar-a-Lago Club on Dec. 28. (Ricky Carioti/The Washington Post) 
 
 After having repeatedly praised President Obama’s efforts to ensure a smooth transition, President-elect Donald Trump reversed course on Wednesday, accusing the current occupant of the Oval Office of putting “roadblocks” in his way. 
 
 Trump took to Twitter shortly after 9 a.m., saying he was “doing my best to disregard the many inflammatory President O statements and roadblocks.” 
 
 Doing my best to disregard the many inflammatory President O statements and roadblocks.Thought it was going to be a smooth transition - NOT! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 28, 2016 
 
 “Thought it was going to be a smooth transition — NOT!” the Republican president-elect wrote. 
 
 The White House declined to comment on Trump's tweet and others that followed. 
 
 President Obama and President-elect Donald Trump had kind words for each other in the aftermath of the election. Then things seemed to change after Christmas. (Bastien Inzaurralde/The Washington Post) 
 
 Trump’s assessment comes amid days of verbal sparring between the outgoing and incoming president. During a ceremony Tuesday marking the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor 75 years ago, Obama cautioned against “the urge to turn inward” and stressed a need to “resist the urge to demonize those who are different” — remarks some thought were aimed partly at Trump. 
 
 Trump also made it clear Wednesday that he is perturbed by a number of steps the Obama administration is taking in its final weeks related to Israel, including a speech that was planned Wednesday by Secretary of State John F. Kerry on Middle East policy. 
 
 We cannot continue to let Israel be treated with such total disdain and disrespect. They used to have a great friend in the U.S., but....... — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 28, 2016 
 
 not anymore. The beginning of the end was the horrible Iran deal, and now this (U.N.)! Stay strong Israel, January 20th is fast approaching! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 28, 2016 
 
 “We cannot continue to let Israel be treated with such total disdain and disrespect,” Trump wrote in another series of tweets. “They used to have a good friend in the U.S., but … not anymore.” 
 
 Trump said the “beginning of the end” was the “horrible” Iran nuclear deal reached last year that was supported by a coalition of world powers but vigorously opposed by Israel. 
 
 Trump was also highly critical this week of the Obama administration’s refusal to veto a United Nations Security Council resolution condemning Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. 
 
 “Stay strong Israel, January 20th is fast approaching!” Trump wrote on Twitter, referring to his inauguration date. 
 
 During a conference call with reporters later Wednesday morning, transition spokesman Sean Spicer at first declined to elaborate on Trump's tweets, saying they “speak for themselves.” He later said that Obama and his administration officials have been generous with their time during the transition process and helpful with “mechanical” issues. 
 
 On Wednesday afternoon, during a brief appearance before reporters at his Mar-A-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Fla., Trump was asked about whether he thinks the transition is going smoothly. 
 
 “Oh, I think very, very smoothly,” he replied. “Very good. You don't think so?” 
 
 Trump also sounded more conciliatory later in the afternoon, when he told reporters that Obama had called him earlier in the day. 
 
 “He called me, we had a very nice conversation,” Trump said, without offering much elaboration. 
 
 Trump’s view of his Democratic predecessor soured earlier this week when Obama said on a podcast hosted by his former adviser, David Axelrod, that he thought he could have prevailed in an election over Trump. 
 
 [President Obama says he could have beaten Trump — Trump says ‘NO WAY!’] 
 
 Those comments prompted two tweets in as many days from Trump contesting Obama’s assessment. On Tuesday, Trump chided Obama for the failure of his campaign efforts on behalf of Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton to bear fruit. 
 
 “President Obama campaigned hard (and personally) in the very important swing states and lost,” Trump said in a tweet. “The voters wanted to MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!” 
 
 Juliet Eilperin contributed to this report. ||||| Trump reverses: Transition is going ‘very, very smoothly’ The comment came hours after he tweeted that Obama was throwing up roadblocks: ‘Thought it was going to be a smooth transition – NOT!’ 
 
 President-elect Donald Trump’s transition into the White House is going “very, very smoothly,” he said Wednesday afternoon, hours after complaining on Twitter that President Barack Obama’s “roadblocks” had made for a rough changeover of power. 
 
 When asked by pool reporters whether he thought the transition was going smoothly, Trump replied: “Oh, I think very, very smoothly. Very good. You don't think so?” 
 
 Story Continued Below 
 
 The reversal apparently comes after Trump and Obama spoke privately. “He phoned me,” Trump told reporters. “We had a very nice conversation.” 
 
 Trump, however, would not say whether he broached his roadblock allegations in his conversation with the president. 
 
 “We had a very general conversation,” he said. “Very, very nice. Appreciated that he called.” 
 
 Later, he told reporters outside his Mar-a-Lago residence that he and Obama "had a good talk about things. He was in Hawaii. It was a very nice call and I actually thought we covered a lot of territory. 
 
 "Our staffs are getting along very well. And I'm getting along very well with him, other than a couple of statements that I responded to and we talked about it and smiled about it. And nobody is ever going to know because we're never going to be going against each other in that way. It was a great conversation." 
 
 After weeks of warm words and promises of a smooth transition in the wake of perhaps the most contentious presidential election in modern history, Trump accused Obama in a Wednesday morning tweet of throwing up “roadblocks.” 
 
 “Doing my best to disregard the many inflammatory President O statements and roadblocks,” he wrote, referring to the president by his initial. “Thought it was going to be a smooth transition - NOT!” 
 
 The two men, who had little positive to say about each other on the campaign trail, seemingly buried the hatchet during an Oval Office meeting that took place just days after Trump’s surprising victory in last month’s election. Obama and Trump have spoken multiple times since then and both expressed interest in a seamless transition between administrations. 
 
 Incoming White House press secretary Sean Spicer said Wednesday during the transition team's daily conference call for reporters that "as the inauguration gets closer, both the current president and his team have been very helpful and generous with their time as far as the actual transition, the mechanics of the transition have gone, and I expect them to continue to speak fairly regularly.” 
 
 
 
 But Spicer also refused to tone down his boss' Twitter rhetoric, telling reporters that the president-elect's social media posts "speak for themselves, I think very clearly." 
 
 The budding relationship between the president and president-elect has frayed in recent weeks, first over the assessment of the FBI and CIA that the Russian government launched cyberattacks targeting the U.S. electoral process with the intention of aiding Trump's candidacy. Trump has been unwilling to concede the validity of that assessment, or even that Russia was behind the cyberattacks at all, a stance that prompted critical remarks from White House press secretary Josh Earnest. 
 
 The president-elect also lashed out this week at the Obama administration over its unwillingness to defend Israel at the United Nations against a resolution condemning it for new settlement activity. 
 
 He told reporters that Secretary of State John Kerry’s speech Wednesday defending the U.S. abstention “really spoke for itself” and suggested the United Nations has failed to live up to its potential. 
 
 “When do you see the United Nations solving problems? They don’t,” he said. “They cause problems. So if it lives up to the potential, it’s a great thing. And if it doesn't, it’s a waste of time and money.” 
 
 In an earlier tweet Wednesday, he said that “we cannot continue to let Israel be treated with such total disdain and disrespect” and urged Israel to “stay strong” because his inauguration on “January 20th is fast approaching!” 
 
 Obama also has made veiled criticisms of Trump in various public remarks, indirectly attacking the president-elect multiple times during his end-of-year news conference and in his remarks Tuesday at Pearl Harbor, where he warned that “even when hatred burns hottest, even when the tug of tribalism is at its most primal, we must resist the urge to turn inward. We must resist the urge to demonize those who are different.” 
 
 And in an interview with CNN’s David Axelrod, his former senior adviser, Obama said he was confident that he could have won a third term in a race against Trump running on his “hope and change” message. The president-elect disagreed. 
 
 “President Obama said that he thinks he would have won against me,” Trump wrote on Twitter Monday afternoon. “He should say that but I say NO WAY! - jobs leaving, ISIS, OCare, etc.” 
 
 Authors: ||||| U.S. President Barack Obama phoned his successor, Donald Trump, after the Republican accused Obama of hobbling the transition to his administration in a tweet that alleged unspecified “inflammatory” statements and “roadblocks.” 
 
 The tweet on Wednesday morning brought tensions between the two men into the open less than a month before Inauguration Day, though the president’s phone call later may have smoothed over relations. 
 
 “We had a very nice conversation,” Trump told reporters gathered at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida. “We had a general conversation.” 
 
 "Today’s call, like the others since the election, was positive and focused on continuing a smooth and effective transition," White House spokesman Eric Schultz said in a statement. "The president and president-elect committed to staying in touch over the next several weeks and agreed their respective teams would continue to work together to effectuate a smooth transition of power on January 20th." 
 
 Donald Trump at the Mar-a-Lago resort on Dec. 28. Photographer: Don Emmert/AFP via Getty Images 
 
 Earlier, Trump erupted on Twitter with attacks on actions and statements by the president, chiefly Obama’s direction that the U.S. abstain from a United Nations Security Council vote declaring Israeli settlements in the West Bank illegal. By declining to veto the resolution, the U.S. allowed it to pass unanimously, enraging Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. 
 
 “Doing my best to disregard the many inflammatory President O statements and roadblocks,” Trump tweeted on Wednesday. “Thought it was going to be a smooth transition -- NOT!” 
 
 As president-elect, Trump has taken an unusually activist role with interventions into business decisions, federal contracting and foreign policy despite Obama’s insistence that only one person can govern the U.S. at a time. The Republican has promised his administration will be friendlier to Israel, a theme he emphasized on Twitter Wednesday. 
 
 Kerry Speech 
 
 “We cannot continue to let Israel be treated with such total disdain and disrespect,” Trump tweeted. “The beginning of the end was the horrible Iran deal, and now this (U.N.!) Stay strong, Israel, January 20th is fast approaching!” 
 
 John Kerry in Washington D.C. on Dec. 28. Photographer: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg 
 
 His tweets came hours before Obama’s secretary of state, John Kerry, described in a speech his vision for peace between Israel and the Palestinians. Netanyahu has said the UN resolution reduced the prospects for an agreement, while Trump announced earlier this month he would nominate his friend and bankruptcy lawyer David Friedman -- an ardent supporter of Israeli settlements -- as his ambassador to the country. 
 
 Other recent moves by Obama are emerging as challenges to the incoming administration. Last week, the president announced that more than 100 million acres of the U.S. Arctic and undersea canyons in the Atlantic Ocean would be protected from new offshore oil and gas drilling. He has encouraged Americans to enroll in Obamacare before the Jan. 31 deadline for 2017 sign-ups despite Trump’s vow to repeal the law, and the Environmental Protection Agency is moving rapidly to finalize mileage requirements for automakers months earlier than expected. 
 
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 Obama has also needled Trump in recent public statements. In an interview published by CNN on Monday, the president said that he would have beaten Trump had he run for a third term. In a speech in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on Tuesday commemorating the 1941 Japanese surprise attack that ushered the U.S. into World War II, Obama cautioned against “tribalism” and “the urge to demonize those who are different,” without mentioning the president-elect. 
 
 Pearl Harbor 
 
 During the past 24 hours, Trump has been busy on Twitter, his favorite channel to communicate with the America public. He tweeted on Tuesday about his election win, after Obama and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe visited the memorial to the USS Arizona, a battleship sunk at Pearl Harbor, and just before their speeches. 
 
 “President Obama campaigned hard (and personally) in the very important swing states, and lost,” Trump wrote. “The voters wanted to MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!” 
 
 Later, he appeared to try to create his own version of the “Thanks, Obama” meme that the president’s supporters and opponents have used in commentary on his record. 
 
 “The U.S. Consumer Confidence Index for December surged nearly four points to 113.7, THE HIGHEST LEVEL IN MORE THAN 15 YEARS! Thanks Donald!” Trump tweeted. 
 
 Years of insults between the two predated Trump’s run for the White House. Yet the real estate developer met with Obama shortly after the election and praised his character while promising to retain some initiatives, including parts of Obama’s signature health-care law. 
 
 Both men have said they’ve spoken by phone more than once after that meeting. But their relations, at least in public, have recently been rocky. 
 
 In response to Obama’s claim that he would have won a race between the two, Trump tweeted on Monday: “I say NO WAY! - jobs leaving, ISIS, OCare, etc.”
– It looks like the honeymoon is over between Trump and Obama. "Doing my best to disregard the many inflammatory President O statements and roadblocks. Thought it was going to be a smooth transition—NOT!" Trump tweeted Wednesday. The Los Angeles Times notes Trump's use of "1990s-style sarcasm." Trump had previously commended Obama on his commitment to a smooth transition of power, but a number of things have changed since then, the Washington Post reports. Many saw comments made by Obama during Tuesday's Pearl Harbor anniversary as directed at Trump. The president urged the US not to "turn inward" and to "resist the urge to demonize those who are different." Trump is also upset with the Obama administration for allowing the UN to pass a resolution condemning Israeli settlements, as well as with Obama personally for saying in an interview he could have beaten Trump and won a third term. In addition, the White House is defending the Department of Energy for not complying with a request from Trump's transition team for the names of employees involved in climate policy, ABC News reports. Transition team spokesperson Sean Spicer at first said Trump's tweets "speak for themselves, very clearly," but later complimented members of the Obama administration for being "helpful and generous with their time."