60 Minutes - Sunday, January 15, 2017

Episode Date: January 16, 2017

President Barack Obama joins Steve Kroft Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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exclusions, and terms apply. Instacart, groceries that over-deliver. Tonight on this special edition of 60 Minutes Presents, President Obama, eight years in the White House. You would have to admit that this is one of the strangest transitions in history. It's unusual. I'll agree with that. In his final network interview, President Obama talks about the things he learned in office, his ups, his downs, and the man who's taking his place. He seems to have spent a good deal of his time sending out tweets that the United States must strengthen and expand its nuclear ability, that Meryl Streep is an overrated Hillary flunky. You're watching this like everybody else.

I mean, what's going on? You know, you're going to have to talk to him. But here's what I think. First of all, I think everybody has to acknowledge, don't underestimate the guy because he's going to be 45th president of the United States. What's going to stick in your mind? What are you going to remember from here? Well, the president took us on a tour and showed us his favorite things around the Oval Office.

He shared some of his memories and told us a little bit about what's next for him. What are you going to do on the 21st when you wake up? I don't know where you're going to be when you wake up, but you're going to wake up someplace where you're not president. Well, here's one thing is I'm not setting my alarm. That I'm certain of. That I am absolutely positive of. Welcome to Play It, a new podcast network featuring radio and TV personalities talking business, sports, tech, entertainment, and more. Play it at play.it.

Good evening. I'm Steve Croft. Welcome to 60 Minutes Presents. Tonight, President Barack Obama looks back at eight years in the White House, his successes, his failures, and what he learned from his two terms as the nation's chief executive and commander-in-chief. We first met him 10 years ago when he was in his first term as a U.S. Senator from Illinois and launching an unlikely campaign for President. As we said at the time, there had never been another presidential candidate quite like him.

His last name rhymed with Osama, and his middle name was Hussein. He was half black, half white, and in terms of political experience, very green. We sat down with President Obama Monday afternoon in the state dining room at the White House. It marked our 12th and final interview with him since he was elected president. We began by showing him a picture. I got something I want to show you. What have we got here? Look at that. I got to say that I feel as if I couldn't take this kind of Chicago winter right now. It was taken Super Bowl Sunday 2007 on a frigid day on the south side of Chicago, one of the

last times he could walk a street without attracting a big crowd, unencumbered by a Secret Service or an entourage. It was a week before he declared his formal candidacy for president. That was 10 years ago. I think that's right. That's my mother-in-law's house, that block, I think. Nobody around? Yeah. Nobody? Yeah. Nobody cared? They didn't. How about that? He was an audaciously hopeful junior senator from Illinois, splitting his time between his tiny apartment in Washington and the Chicago home where he had two young daughters. What else does he make besides tuna fish?

Chili, and that's it. His wife, Michelle, was a working mom, a hospital executive, and major breadwinner in the family. She wasn't crazy about her husband being in politics. Has it put strains on the marriage from time to time? Oh, no. Absolutely, it has. But you let him go ahead and do this?

I think if I weren't married to him, I'd want him to be in there. So I don't want to stand in the way of that because we have to work out a few things. We've had those arguments. And I've lost them all. It all seems like a long time ago. So what's the difference between this guy and the guy you are now? How much smarter are you than this guy standing on the street corner? Well, let's see. Obviously, I'm grayer, a few more wrinkles.

You know, I'll be honest with you, Steve. One of the things I'm proud about is that I think my basic character and outlook actually have not changed much. And people who are closest to me would tell you that the guy who came here is the same guy who's leaving. And the reason I take pride for that is one of the things you worry about when you're in the bubble and there's all this pomp and circumstance and hail to the chief is do you

lose touch with what you thought was important and what brought you here? And I'm proud that I don't think I have lost touch. If you had to write a brief description of this job, beginning with wanted, how would you describe the position and what are the tasks and what skills do you think you need? Thick skin helps. Thick skin? Yeah. Stamina? Stamina. There is a greater physical element to this job than you would think.

Just being able to grind it out and I think your ability to not just mentally and emotionally, but physically be able to say, we got this, we're going to be okay. Did you learn the executive stuff on the job? Because when we first talked, I must have asked you a hundred times, your only executive experience was running the Harvard Law Review and running your own campaign. Yeah. Did you have to learn a lot of this on the job? The campaign was a more significant training ground than I think people give it credit for. By the time I got here, I think I had a pretty good sense of what was required.

But the circumstances in which I came in were different than most executives, right? The enterprise was in the midst of a major crisis, and so those first six months were a fire drill. Beside the two wars he inherited in Iraq and Afghanistan and promised to end, a financial crisis at home had pushed the United States to the brink of another Great Depression. When we spoke with the new president in March of 2009, the economy was losing 800,000 jobs a month. The government was throwing hundreds of billions of dollars at failing banks, and the auto industry was on the verge of collapse. Politically pummeled from all sides, Obama did his industry was on the verge of collapse. Politically pummeled

from all sides, Obama did his best to keep a sense of humor. I just want to say that the only thing less popular than putting money into banks is putting money into the auto industry. 18% are in favor, 76% against. It's not a high number. You're sitting here and you are laughing about some of these problems. Are people going to look at this and say, I mean, you're sitting there just making jokes about money. How do you deal with it?

I mean, explain your mood and your laughter. Are you punch drunk? No, no, there's got to be a little gallows humor to get you through the day. A political candidacy built around hope and change and compromise would eventually become a presidency of crisis and confrontation. Is there anything that surprised you about this job? I was surprised and continue to be surprised by the severity of partisanship in this town. And I think that I'd been warned about it. You'll remember in the campaign back in 2007, 2008, people would say, oh, he's being naive.

He thinks that there's no red states and blue states and wait till he gets here. And I will confess that I didn't fully appreciate the ways in which individual senators or members of Congress now are pushed to the extremes by their voter bases. I did not expect, particularly in the midst of crisis, just how severe that partisanship would be. You came into this office trying to unify the country. You said that many times during the campaign. You wanted into this office trying to unify the country. You said that many times during the campaign. You wanted to bring people together. You wanted to change Washington. You talked about transformative change. And you became the focal point for some of the division. I became a lightning rod for some partisan battles. I could not be prouder of the track

record we've put together. By almost every measure, the country is significantly better off than when I came in. If you can look back and say the economy's better, our security's better, the environment's better, our kids' education's better, if you can say that you've made things better, then considering all the challenges out there. You should feel good. But I'm the first to acknowledge that I did not crack the code in terms of reducing this partisan fever. You didn't change Washington. You know, I changed those things that were in my direct control. I mean, look, I'm proud of the fact that with two weeks to go,

we're probably the first administration in modern history that hasn't had a major scandal in the White House. In that sense, we changed some things. I would have liked to have gotten that one last Supreme Court justice in there. I'd like the Supreme Court to take a look at it. Couldn't even get a hearing. But we couldn't even get a hearing. But we couldn't even get a hearing. Trying to get the other side of the aisle to work with us on issues, in some cases that they professed originally an interest in, and saying to them, hold on a second, you guys used to think this was a good idea. Now, just because I'm supporting it, you can't change your mind, but they did. And what that

did, I think, make me appreciate. I've said this before, but it's worth repeating, because this is on me. Part of the job description is also shaping public opinion. And we were very effective, and I was very effective, in shaping public opinion around my campaigns. But there were big stretches while governing where even though we were doing the right thing, we weren't able to mobilize public opinion firmly enough behind us to weaken the resolve of the Republicans to stop opposing us or to cooperate with us. And there were times during my presidency where I lost the PR battle. And losing the PR battles, particularly about health care, translated into losing his Democratic majorities in Congress, beginning with a Republican landslide in the midterm election of 2010.

There is this feeling, particularly among people who are among your most ardent supporters, who feel a little disappointed that they think that you've lost your mojo, that you've lost your ability, that touch you had during the campaign to inspire and lead. You know, everybody in Washington writes about the sort of aloofness that you have, and I'm sure that drives you crazy, that you've let other people define you, that you haven't sold your successes well enough. I think it's a fair argument. I think that over the course of two years, we were so busy and so focused on getting a bunch of stuff done that we stopped paying attention to the fact that leadership isn't just legislation, that it's a matter of persuading people and giving them confidence

and bringing them together and setting a tone. For the next six years, there would be legislative gridlock. And by 2016, the people who had looked to Obama for change were looking somewhere else. Donald Trump, if you take away the particulars, was elected to the office basically on the same program that you were. Change wants to change Washington. Well, I mean, that's a lot of particulars you're taking away. Fair enough. He was a change candidate.

Do you think anybody could change Washington? I think the American people can change Washington. But I think that it is not going to change because somebody from on high directs that change. Members of Congress on both sides of the aisle are motivated by all kinds of issues. They're sincerely interested in the economy and in terrorism and social issues. But the one overriding thing they are interested in is getting reelected. And if they think that it's harder for them to get reelected by cooperating with each other, then they won't cooperate. A lot of people think the system is broken. I mean, that the system, the political system is broken. That seemed to be the message

that you heard throughout this campaign. Well, and you seem to be saying in some ways, maybe it is broken. In the first two years when I had a strong majority in the House and the Senate, we were as productive as any administration has been since the 60s. I mean, we got a lot done. And so you can get a lot of stuff done through this system. But to sustain a governing majority, that requires an ability for Republicans and Democrats to find some common ground. And right now, the structure of the system is such where it makes it really hard for people to work together. And we mentioned an example earlier, the Supreme Court nominations. I mean, the fact that Mitch McConnell, the leader of the Republicans, was able to just stop a nomination almost a year before

the next election and really not pay a political price for it. That's a sign that the incentives for politicians in this town to be so sharply partisan have gotten so out of hand that, you know, we're weakening ourselves. How serious do you think this is? I mean, how stable do you think that the political system, the democratic system is? Look, I think it's stable because the framers in their wisdom designed the system so that power is pretty dispersed. We have states, and we have cities, and we have counties, and we have the private sector. And so the country still works, even when Washington's dysfunctional.

But the problem is, is that over time, big pieces of business that have to get done without leadership from Washington don't get done. I want to go back just briefly on this, but I think, look, this last election you had the political system. Well, first of all, people elected somebody who went around saying that the system was rigged. Yeah. You had two of the most unpopular presidential candidates selected by the two parties in history. Yeah. Doesn't that say something's wrong? Something serious is wrong? It indicates that there is a lot of cynicism out there. It indicates that the corrosive nature of everything from talk radio to fake news to negative advertising has made people lack confidence in a lot of our existing

institutions. I think it indicates, at least on the Democratic side, that we've got more work to do to strengthen our grassroots networks. In some ways, the Democratic Party hadn't constructed itself to get that message out to the places it needed to get to. The Tea Party, I have huge disagreements with, obviously. But I give them credit for having activated themselves. And they made a difference in terms of moving the Republican Party and in terms of moving the country in a particular direction. It's a direction I disagreed with, but it showed that, in fact, you get involved. If your voice is heard, it has an impact. Do you feel the same way about Donald Trump?

Well, I think that he clearly was able to tap into a lot of grievances, and he has a talent for making a connection with his supporters that overrode some of the traditional benchmarks of how you'd run a campaign or conduct yourself as a presidential candidate. What will be interesting to see is how that plays out during the course of his presidency. We are moving into an era where a lot of people get their information through tweets and sound bites and some headline that comes over their phone and I think that there's a power in that, there's also a danger. What generates a headline or stirs up a controversy and gets attention isn't the same as the process required to actually solve a problem. You said you don't know how he's going to do when he governs, but we're in this transition period,

and one of the first things that he has done in this transition period is to pick a fight with the intelligence agencies. Do you think that that's a smart move? You're not going to be able to make good decisions without building some relationship of trust between yourself and that community. Do you see that happening? Not yet,

but, you know, again, he hasn't gotten sworn into office yet. Welcome to Play It, a new podcast network featuring radio and TV personalities talking business, sports, tech, entertainment, and more. Play it at play.it. At the White House on Monday, crates and boxes lined the hallway and cluttered the East Room. Some carpets had been rolled up. Outside, there are bleachers on Pennsylvania Avenue and moving vans in the driveway. Visual evidence that there's a transition underway. This ritual of democracy, this peaceful transfer of power, can be awkward under the best of circumstances. And these are not the best of circumstances for either the outgoing or incoming president.

You would have to admit that this is one of the strangest transitions in history. It's unusual. I'll agree with that. Well, I mean, he seems that... And I suspect the president-elect would agree with that. Look, he's an unconventional candidate. I don't think there's anybody who's run a campaign like his successfully in modern history, not that I can think of. And as a consequence, because he didn't have the supports of many of the establishment in his own party, because he ran sort of an improvisational campaign. Can you run an improvisational presidency? I don't think so. And so now he's in the process of building up an organization.

And we'll have to see how that works. And it'll be a test, I think, for him and the people that he's designated to be able to execute on his vision. Look, I think that the country deeply appreciates the fact that you have not spoken clearly, I think, probably what's on your mind in relation to the president-elect. But as you said earlier, it's unusual. He seems to have spent a good deal of his time sending out tweets that, you know, that the United States must strengthen and expand its nuclear ability, that Meryl Streep is an overrated Hillary flunky. You're watching this like everybody else. I mean, what's going on? You know, you're going to have to talk to him.

But here's what I think. First of all, I think everybody has to acknowledge, don't underestimate the guy because he's going to be 45th president of the United States. and I would advise my Republican friends in Congress and supporters around the country, is just make sure that as we go forward, certain norms, certain institutional traditions don't get eroded because there's a reason they're in place. One thing both men have in common is a love of golf and a shared knowledge of the word mulligan, which means a do-over to replace a lousy shot. I mean, you play golf. I do. Do you ever wish you had a mulligan? I mean, in the eight years that you've had, if you had three or four mulligans, would you use them? Yeah, you know, there's no doubt that probably at least once a week, maybe once a day, I said, ah, I should have done that better. I bet at the end of this interview, I'll say, oh, that would have been a really good answer for that or this.

I think we've done the big stuff right. I think that there are some big, obvious fumbles or shanks, if you're using the golf analogy. Well, healthcare.gov is a good example. If you know you've got a controversial program and you're setting up a really big, complicated website, the website better work on the first day or first week or first month. The fact that it didn't obviously lost a little momentum. That was clearly a management failure. Critics of the administration would cite what they see as larger failures in the area of foreign policy, particularly in the Middle East, which we grilled him about in an interview 15 months ago.

There is a perception in the Middle East that the United States is in retreat, that we pulled our troops out of Iraq and ISIS has moved in and taken over much of that territory. The situation in Afghanistan is very precarious and the Taliban is on the march again. I think it's fair to say, Steve, that if... Let me just finish the thought. Okay. They say you're projecting weakness, not strength. You're saying they, but you're not citing too many folks.

No, I'll cite for us if you want me to. I'd say the Saudis. I'd say the Israelis. I'd say a lot of our friends in the Middle East. I'd say everybody in the Republican Party. Do you want me to keep going? Yeah, if you're citing the Republican Party, I think it's fair to say that there's nothing I've done right over the last seven and a half years.

But even former members of his administration criticized the president for talking tough and not following through. In 2012, Obama told the Syrian government that the use of chemical weapons would cross a red line. That's a red line for us. That could provoke U.S. military involvement. When they were used, the president responded not with force, but diplomacy, raising questions about his credibility. I want to go back to, like, 2012. Yeah.

I want to, to two words. Red line. Yeah. You didn't have to say that. Yeah. I want it to two words. Red line. Yeah. You didn't have to say that. Yeah. And there have been reports that it wasn't in your speech. No, it wasn't. That you just sort of ad libbed it. If you could pull the, it created, it created problems for you with the, with the military people. Would you take those words back? You didn't have to say them. Yeah, look, if you're putting all the weight on that particular phrase, then in terms of how it was interpreted in Washington, I think you make a legitimate point. I've got to tell you, though, I don't regret at all saying that if I saw Bashar al-Assad using chemical weapons on his people, that

that would change my assessments in terms of what we were or were not willing to do in Syria. But you didn't say that. Well. You said you drew the red line. Look. I don't want to make too big a deal out of it. I understand.

But do you think that that was, would you take it back? If you had the opportunity to take it back, if you had the opportunity to take it back? The reason I'm hesitating is not to be defensive. It's simply, Steve, that I would have, I think, made a bigger mistake if I had said, yeah, chemical weapons, that doesn't really change my calculus. I think it was important for me as president of the United States to send a message that, in fact, there is something different about chemical weapons. And regardless of how it ended up playing, I think, in the Beltway, what is true is Assad got rid of his chemical weapons.

And the reason he got rid of them is because... For a while. Well, look, if 90% or 95% of those chemical stockpiles were eliminated, that's a lot of chemical weapons that are not right now in the hands of ISIL or Nusra, or for that matter, the regime. Israel. Yeah. A few weeks ago, you allowed the U.N. Security Council to pass a resolution condemning Israel's settlements in the West Bank.

It caused a major fallout between the United States and Israel. Was it your decision to abstain? Yes, ultimately. Why did you feel like you had to do that? Well, first of all, Steve, I don't think it caused a major rupture in relations between the United States and Israel. If you're saying that Prime Minister Netanyahu got fired up, he's been fired up repeatedly during the course of my presidency around the Iran deal and around our consistent objection to settlements. So that part of it wasn't new.

And despite all the noise and hullabaloo, military cooperation, intelligence cooperation, all of that has continued. We have defended them consistently in every imaginable way. But I also believe that both for our national interests and Israel's national interests, that allowing an ongoing conflict between Israelis and Palestinians that could get worse and worse over time is a problem, and that settlements contribute. They're not the sole reason for it, but they are a contributing factor to the inability to solve that problem.

And you wanted to make that point. Not only did I want to make that point, we are reaching a tipping point where the pace of settlements during the course of my presidency has gotten so substantial that it's getting harder and harder to imagine an effective, contiguous Palestinian state. And I think it would have long-term consequences for

peace and security in the region. And the United States, because of our investment in the region and because we care so deeply about Israel, I think has a legitimate interest in saying to a friend, this is a problem. And we've said it. Look, it's not as if we hadn't been saying it from day one. We've been saying it for eight years now. It's just that nothing seemed to get a lot of attention. Welcome to Play It, a new podcast network featuring radio and TV personalities talking business, sports, tech, entertainment, and more. Play it at play.it. After our interview in the state dining room,

President Obama invited us to the Oval Office where he had some things he wanted to show us and some thoughts about his family's eight years in the executive mansion. What are you going to miss most about this place? Yeah, this walk is one of them. On the way, he told us his family life had thrived living and working under the White House roof, but that his wife and daughters didn't feel the same way about life in what Harry Truman called the finest prison in the world. How do they feel?

They're ready to go. I mean, the girls, obviously, you know, they are now of an age in which the constraints of Secret Service and bubbles and all that stuff has gotten pretty old. Michelle never fully took to the scrutiny. I mean, she's thrived as a first lady, but it's not her preference. She was the hardest sell. She was the hardest sell and she never fully embraced being in the public spotlight, which is ironic given how good she is. Having said that, she would acknowledge,

and I certainly feel, that we just have a lot of memories here. Our kids grew up here. Some of our best friends have been made here in this place. There have been moments that were highlights for us that are going to be hard to duplicate. She's glad you did it, though. She is now. I think I've said this story before. She used to say to our friends, Barack's exactly the kind of guy I want to be president. I just wish he didn't want to do it and I was married to him.

But you're still all right. I mean, everything's okay. So far, as far as I know. I just wish he didn't want to do it and I was married to him. But you're still all right. I mean, everything's okay. So far, as far as I know, I better check later. Yeah. You have said you're going to take a big vacation. You're going to write your book. You're going to work on your library. You're going to set up a foundation. I mean, that sounds very professorial compared to what you've been doing, like the ivory tower equivalent of puttering around the garden. Are you going to be happy doing this? Well, look, I'm going to try to get some sleep and do a little puttering because I haven't had a lot of chance to reflect and absorb all this. I do not expect to be behind a desk a lot.

I look forward to teaching the occasional class because I was a professor and I had fun doing it. You're not going to go to Wall Street and make a lot of money? I'm not going to Wall Street. The amount of time that I'll be investing in issues is going to be high, but it'll be necessarily in a different capacity. Roosevelt's a member for Social Security. Eisenhower is a member for a speech about the military industrial complex. Ten years from now, what are they going to say about you? What are they going to remember you for? You know, I don't think you know now.

I think you're not going to know until ten years from now. I do think that, you know, saving the economy was a pretty big deal. We did a lot of stuff early that ended up having an impact. I believe that the work we've done in moving our energy future in a cleaner direction is going to stick, even if some of the individual steps that we took are reversed by future administrations. I think that it's embedded itself in the economy, and we've been able to organize the international community around it in ways that aren't going to go back.

I think we've set the bar with respect to the notion that it is possible to provide health care for people. Now, I know that the incoming Congress and administration talks about repealing it, but we've set a bar that shows that this can be done. And that core principle is one that the majority of Americans, including supporters of Donald Trump, believe in. What are your memories of this office? What's going to stick in your mind? What are you going to remember from here? Well, I think the number of decisions that you make just with your advisors sitting

here, we've had some big powwows around, is the banking system about to collapse and what do we do about it, to questions of war and peace. So you remember the decisions that were made in this room. The objects in this room, only a few am I really attached to. I think that I'll always remember the bust of Dr. King. I thought having an American here who represented that civic spirit that got me into this office was useful. Over there, I've got the original program for the March on Washington that was framed and given to me by a friend. You know, I'll remember the view out this window because this is where we had the playground that we put in when Malia and Sasha came in. Being able every once in a while to look out the window

and see your daughters during the summer swinging on that swing set, that made the presidency a little bit sweeter. When Sasha and Malia Obama arrived at the White House in 2009, they were age 7 and 10. Their parents, for the most part, were successful in keeping them out of the limelight, except in the rarest circumstances. In the fall, Malia begins at Harvard after a gap year. Sasha is a sophomore at her private school in Washington. This month, the swing set was dismantled and given away.

You feel older? Yeah. You know, it's interesting. Physically, I feel probably as good as I've ever felt. I've got as much energy as I ever did. But what you feel after eight years, and I think you'd feel this no matter what, but any time you have a big transition, it gets magnified, is time passes. Your kids grow up. I think they, more than anything, are making me feel as if you want to squeeze everything you got every single day out of this thing because it passes quick. You're having trouble letting go?

No. I am looking forward to getting out of the bubble. I am glad that I'm leaving this place at a relatively young age, at 55. So I have the opportunity for a second, maybe even a third act in a way that I think would be tougher if I were the age of some presidents when they left. There's some bittersweet feelings about leaving the people here, because even though all the team you assemble, you know you're going to stay in touch with them, it's not the same. The band kind of breaks up. And I think I'm the best president I've ever been right now. And I think the team that is operating right now functions as well as any team that I've had. And so there is a part of you that thinks, man, we're pretty good at this stuff right now.

And you hate to see that talent disperse. You're going to have reunions? Well, not, I don't think we're going to have like t-shirts and you know, all that stuff. That sounds kind of sad. And so many of my staff is young enough that they're going to do amazing things and I'm going to be helping them try to do them. So overall, though, I have a deep appreciation for the wisdom of this guy right there, George Washington. It's good to get fresh legs in here. I think that it pace over more than eight years is pretty tough. What are you going to do on the 21st when you wake up?

I don't know where you're going to be when you wake up, but you're going to wake up someplace where you're not president. Well, here's one thing is I'm not setting my alarm. That I'm certain of. That I am absolutely positive of. I'm going to spend time with Michelle. And, you know, we've got some catching up to do. We've both been busy.

You've got to be spending your own money, right? Absolutely. Well, you know, the truth, though, is that we've been... Have you been spending your own? When was the last time you spent your own money? Well, I will say this. I mentioned how I've got a pretty thick skin in this job. You've got to have it.

One thing that did kind of get under my cross sometimes was people talking as if when we went on vacation, you know, that people be like, oh, spending taxpayer money. It's like, no, no, actually I'm paying for all of this. The only thing I don't pay for a secret service and, and, uh, and an airplane and communications and communications. Cause I don't have any choice. Right. But, you know, we buy our own toilet paper, even here in the White House. Really? It's not free.

I've got a grocery bill at the end of every month. You know, our toothpaste, our, you know, our orange juice, that all gets paid. But it is true that I don't carry my wallet that often. So I'm going to have some catching up to do in terms of how day-to-day things operate. It's not unusual for a president to issue an observation, beware of this, be wary of that. What is the thing that concerns you most right now, leaving office, about the country? Making sure that our democracy stays healthy

and making sure that we maintain that sense of solidarity. The thing that has disturbed me most about the Russian hacking episode is, and the thing that surprised me most, has not been the fact of Russian hacking because Chinese, Russians, Iranians. The United States. Well, the cyber world is full of information gathering, propaganda, et cetera. I have been concerned about the degree to which, in some circles, you've seen people suggest that Vladimir Putin has more credibility than the U.S. government.

I think that's something new. And I think it's a measure of how the partisan divide has gotten so severe that people forget we're on the same team. We go into the hallway here. The president led us through a side door from the Oval Office into a short hallway and into his small private dining room. Here, the mementos were personal, far less formal. All this stuff to come in with you? Absolutely. Well, not all of it. Hard packing. I think this famous painting of the peacemakers, that goes with the territory.

How much stuff are you going to take with you? Not that much. I mean, you know, I got books, I got clothes, I got mementos like these that I cherish. We got some furniture that we purchased that we'll try to use in the new place. Do you like it, the new house? It's a nice home. You've been there?

Yeah, it's temporary. Two years. But it feels like a home. It's not crazy big, but there's enough room for a treadmill and some workout equipment in the basement. The next day, President Obama was back in Chicago where it all began to deliver his farewell address. My fellow Americans, it has been the honor of my life to serve you. I won't stop. In fact, I will be right there with you as a citizen for all my remaining days. Thank you.

God bless you. May God continue to bless the United States of America. Thank you. God bless you. May God continue to bless the United States of America. Thank you. Thank you. President Obama and all the times we were with him seemed to savor the challenge of an interview. For him, it was an intellectual workout, something on par with a pickup basketball game, complete with a little trash talk. There were never any restrictions on questions, no taboo topics. A year and a half ago, there was a particularly contentious line of questioning about America's role in Syria. After it, we took a short break for a few sips of water.

And when the cameras rolled again, the president was ready for more. What else you got? Tonight, at last, we have no more questions. I'm Steve Croft, and we'll be back in two weeks with a brand new edition of 60 Minutes.