Obama takes new swipe at Founding Fathers ahead of America's 250th birthday: 'Deep flaw'

Former President Barack Obama took aim at the Founding Fathers ahead of America's 250th anniversary, saying they held a "deep flaw" for their ties to slavery despite being "geniuses." 

"I think sometimes we get confused in thinking that these two stories are separate. They're intertwined, right? Which is why it's possible for me to be a great admirer of George Washington, and also acknowledge he was a slaveholder," said Obama in an interview Sunday with MSNOW.

"That does not negate [Washington's] greatness, it simply acknowledges that there's a profound deep flaw in these Founding Fathers who were also geniuses and gave us these tools," Obama said.

"It's that we're this mixed bag, we've got contradictions. And embody the country's contradictions," he added.

During the center's opening ceremony, which attracted former presidents and Hollywood elites, Obama took a swipe at the founders. 

"The success of this experiment was never a given," Obama said in his speech, referring to the nation's founding.

Fox News Digital reached out to Obama's office for additional comment on Monday. 

During Obama's early political rise, researchers found that some of his White ancestors had owned slaves in the U.S., a discovery that has resurfaced periodically in political discourse, including in 2019 comments by then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.

"While a relative owned slaves, another fought for the Union in the Civil War," then-Obama spokesman Bill Burton confirmed to the Associated Press in 2007 of the future president's family history.