Pod Save America - Obama's Last Interview

Episode Date: January 19, 2017

The Pod Save America team sits down with President Obama for his last interview as President.

My last official interview as President of the United States. All right, so I've been briefed. You've been briefed? Was it an intense briefing? You've been told what this goat rodeo is about? All right, let's do this. Okay, welcome to Pod Save America. We are here today in the Roosevelt Room at the White House with President Barack Obama on his last interview as President of the United States.

Mr. President, thank you for joining us. It is wonderful to be with you guys. Let me preface this by saying I cannot believe that people actually listen to you guys. Nor can we. I mean, it's shocking. believe that people actually listen to you guys. Nor can we. I mean, it's shocking. But, you know, it should give everybody out there hope that they can do something with their lives.

You too can be a podcast host. That's exactly right. Land of opportunity. Is this the most ridiculous thing you've done? No. As you all know, Axe's podcast was mainly because he took his more seriously. Anyway, what do you got?

All right, come on. Let's keep this thing moving. If you could go back in time and talk to 2009 Obama on his first day in office, what piece of advice would you give him right before he walks into the Oval Office? would you give him right before he walks into the Oval Office? You know, I would tell him that you have to spend more time thinking about new ways of communicating with the American people. You can't be so intimidated by the way things have been done in the White House because the communications landscape is shifting. And when you think about the dilemmas that we were confronting, right?

The economy is collapsing. We're still in two wars. I'm always surprised and gratified about how we got, I think, basic policy right. And that was mainly because we just had a lot of really smart people around working really hard and had a good process. But, you know, Lincoln said, with public opinion, there's nothing you can't do. And, you know, without it, there's not much you can do. And we were going to get clobbered in 2010 probably no matter what we did, just because on my watch people were really hurting.

But I think that I might have said to 2009 Obama, think about how you got here and spend that same amount of effort and energy touching people directly as opposed to standing behind a podium and you know giving a bunch of grim you know lectures just some grim speeches they were yeah yeah and remember people got i think that's where the impression arose that uh now obama's really you know spock like because i was talking about well today we lost 800 jobs, but here's what we're going to do. It was hard to seem cheerful and light. The Recovery Act is divided into three parts. Partly the amount of the people and the different. The Recovery Act. We always said as speechwriters, we're going to have that on our gravestone. but yeah i think that the other thing i i would have probably told myself is to make sure that

the team is supported and encouraged and you're paying a lot of attention to process you know i think we ended up being good later we I got better and I think the whole team got better. But in those early days, I think you don't appreciate how much just making sure that everybody is communicating well together internally and looking out for each other. So there were some messy meetings. I don't recall that at all. Yeah, they kind of wore people out. So you just finished your final press conference.

Right. Was it fun? It was, actually. You know, I always enjoyed press conferences. You guys who were watching them and had to prep me and then clean up afterwards may have not always enjoyed them, but I did. And I was impressed that there were no six-part questions. There were just... Five-part? No, I think two-part was the most we got.

So I don't know whether that was just a sort of farewell bouquet to me. It's like, oh, I didn't have to write any of the questions down. We wanted to make the real news here. There you go. That's right. Yeah. You know, you've talked a lot, particularly in your speech in Chicago, about the impact of people living in bubbles, right? How do you think in this sort of polarized media environment, with full software in it since you're talking to a progressive media startup,

how do you think people can get out of those bubbles in this sort of polarized media world? I'm going to spend a lot of time thinking about this. I don't have clean answers to it. Some of it is just technology driven. If you have a phone and you are able to visit everything on the web with a touch of a button, you are going to get into certain habits. And yeah, you can lecture people about you know go to the site that makes your blood boil with you which you completely disagree but it's it's hard to do um i don't think you're going to get a huge amount of take up and i think that it's unrealistic to expect that people are just going to put their phones away and you know spend all their time listening to NPR or other media that I might think is more balanced

and more accurate. On the other hand, my instinct is everybody hates media right now. Everybody knows that the political culture doesn't work. So that has to be an opportunity right there's got to be a way in which we can create sort of a virtual public square that feels better for people my suspicion is that particularly after this last election there's a a sizable maybe still silent majority that just is tired of being mad all the time and would appreciate you know people listening to each other so one of the things i'm going to be spending some time thinking about is how do you build that civic culture both in the real world and in the virtual world because if we don't i don't know how we solve problems. Each side can win elections. Each side can, in that tug of war, kind of move five yards this way or that way.

But tackling big challenges of the sort that I talked about in the speech, tackling inequality, thinking about what are the new economic models that we're going to have to come up with, that's going to require building consensus. And we are very far away from doing that right now. Yeah. So you have kept your promise to ensure a smooth transition. I've tried to. Yeah.

And beyond that, I think it's fair to say you've shown tremendous restraint in not criticizing the president-elect on things that aren't just policy differences, but, you know, any of his Twitter comments or anything else like that. Why did you feel it was so important to do this? I know it was tradition and Bush did this for you, and you really respect that. It seems like there's a larger principle at stake there for you. I just think that the election was so fraught with anxiety, controversy, anger, that it was important for everybody to have a cooling off period. And I figured that would have to start with me.

It is also my belief, and you guys both worked here, so I think you'll appreciate this, that whatever your ideological beliefs, this place has to work in order for people to get their Social Security checks and to make sure that veterans are getting care and to make sure that our troops are properly equipped when they go into the war theater. And so whatever differences you have, you want to make sure that at least the basic ship of state is functioning. And I think in part because the president-elect may not have anticipated winning or at least didn't have the traditional party establishment behind him, It meant that they were going to have to build up a team pretty quick, which made it that much more important for us to be able to provide them a pretty good blueprint of just the basic blocking and tackling of running the government. So I know that that didn't always satisfy some of the emotions of folks who were disappointed with the election outcome. But, you know, I mean, that's my, as you guys know, that's my sweet spot. That's my wheelhouse. People not being fully satisfied with me giving vent to how they're feeling. You've talked a lot since the election about what the Democratic Party should do differently. And

you've said, you know, you've got to show up in these small towns where these voters went from you in 2012 to Trump this past election. When the Democrats show up in those small towns, what do you think they should say to those Trump Obama voters? Well, I think the first thing they should say is, what is it that you guys want i think you start by listening and trying to tease out from people what is it that they're most worried about what are what are the stories they're telling themselves about their opportunities and their kids opportunities and if you spend some time listening then you'll learn a lot and i have my suspicions about what they'll say, which is they feel as if there are cities and power centers around this country that are doing really well. And they feel like nobody's paying attention to them and that things are deteriorating and

the way of life and security that they used to feel they had isn't there anymore. And the question then for Democrats is, in addition to a whole bunch of policies that are tried, true, and I continue to believe are important, like raising minimum wage or rebuilding our infrastructure around the country so we can put a bunch of hard hats back to work, or making sure that we're investing in our school systems from early childhood education through community colleges and having lifelong job training. In addition to all that stuff, I do think that the Democratic Party is going to have to maybe be a little bolder in how we describe our economic options going forward. There's been an argument about trade in the Democratic Party, and that's been one of the few fault lines in what otherwise has been a pretty unified Democratic Party.

And I said in my speech in Chicago, look, we all want free and fair trade. And you can argue about negotiations with China or take a tougher stance with Mexico or what have you. But the fact is, and the data just shows this, the jobs that are going away are primarily going away because of automation. And that's going to accelerate. is automation. And that's going to accelerate. And driverless Uber and the equivalent displacement that's going to be taking place in office buildings all around the country is going to be scary for folks, which means that we are going to have to start thinking about where do jobs come from and how much government involvement is there in the marketplace? And do we have a job sharing economy that works so that everybody has work because it turns out that work's not

just about finances, but it's about dignity and feeling like you got a place in the world. And how do you pay for that? And if more and more people are working in the service sector, how do we make sure that they are getting paid enough? So in addition to making an argument that if you want a better deal, then you better start unionizing and organizing because otherwise you're going to get screwed. In addition to making the argument that if you're in the service sector right now, you should be fighting for a higher minimum wage because across the board, everybody in the service sector is going to be better off. In addition to those traditional arguments, we, I think, probably have to be more creative about anticipating what's coming down the pike because automation is relentless and it's going to accelerate. You saw just what happened to retail stores,

sales this past Christmas. Amazon and online sales is killing traditional retail and what's true there is going to be true throughout our economy. You're listening to Pod Save America. To Pod Save America. I think it's fair to say that Republicans have, over the last eight years, eroded certain norms, democratic norms. I'm not just thinking about the last election. I'm thinking about Merrick Garland, the debt ceiling. Confirmation process. Confirm confirmation process. Do you think that the progressive should follow suit to win more? Or do you think that, you know, it's more important to be the institutionalist and,

you know, I'm in this world where there's so many institutions breaking down, even if we face political setbacks, you know, what do we do with that? Yeah, I look, I think that it doesn't help the progressive cause to undermine norms that help support a progressive society. So in that sense, yeah, maybe we're a little bit disadvantaged relative to Mitch McConnell. But I don't know how we're served with more judicial vacancies. I don't know how well served we are with us trying to suppress voters the way they try to suppress voters in a place like North Carolina. That doesn't sound like a good solution. But in terms of cooperation, in terms of how does a Democratic Congress work with President Trump, my suggestion has been that you stand your ground and you,

where there are areas of agreement, just make sure that you're negotiating tough and negotiating well. I'll give you a specific example. Trump says that he wants to build infrastructure. Well, everybody around this table knows that I've been on my infrastructure advocacy since I came into office. So that should be an area where our interests meet. But how you pay for it is really important. And if President-elect Trump or the Republican Congress tell you, you know what, right now deficits don't matter. Let's just go ahead and finance a big infrastructure boom. It's important for Democrats to anticipate that two years later, they'll suddenly come back and say, you know what, we all voted for this infrastructure. Now the deficits are terrible.

Deficits count again. And this is why we need to cut Medicaid. deficits count again, and this is why we need to cut Medicaid. So I think you look for ways to cooperate where you can, but I think you don't play the sucker. Make sure that that cooperation does not carry such a high price that it undermines some other key things that you care about. And I think where Democrats should be pretty hard-nosed is around some of the basic institutional and structural systems like voting and keeping politics out of the criminal justice system. and keeping politics out of the criminal justice system, that if we lose on that front, then the democratic process doesn't work.

Then people don't have the chance to say, you know what, we tried this thing now. We want something else to replace it because, lo and behold, power has further entrenched some of these structural advantages. You've said one of the things that you're going to do when you walk out of here is begin thinking about your memoirs. You know, you are a writer first and were a writer before you were a politician. Have you thought about how your memoirs might be different than the traditional presidential memoir? Yeah, I've given that some thought. Look, hopefully people don't just buy the book, but they read it too. So that would be one. You get paid either way. Yeah, but you know what? You kind of want folks to feel like they got

something out of it. I haven't given a lot of thought. I've been too busy. The one thing that probably is a carryover from the way we wrote speeches and and a bunch of you guys around here worked on speeches with me i want to tell a story as opposed to just have a series of lines right and so i i think the equivalent in a book is if all it is is and then this happened and then this happened and then this happened, and it's chronological and it just sort of becomes a detailed diary, then I'm probably not going to be able to transmit to people what I found has been most interesting about this job, and that is the stories of the American people, certain themes that come up again and again, the growth that took place for me and for you guys and a lot of people as you wrestle with being an outsider.

And then suddenly you're on the inside and how change happens and what blocks it. happens and what blocks it so i think the main thing probably is is just making sure that uh whatever i write is a little more thematic which is good because you know i've how's that journal well that's that's the point is is uh i think partly because the first two years it was just such a fire drill you know i just you know i'd i'd be finished by midnight, and the idea of sitting there and then trying to write down. Today I met with Mitch McConnell. Exactly. Or here's what the Afghan review process was like. So maybe just as a consequence of not having been like Jimmy Carter and meticulously recorded every single thing that happened to me every day, I'll be forced to write thematically.

A lot of details are lost. Mr. President, I was lucky enough to be a part of this journey on the 2004 Senate race, and I was looking through old pictures the other day. And I saw this rinky-dink downstate Illinois tour we'd announced in Chicago. And Sasha was so little. She was still in the First Lady's arms. And it just, then I ran into Malia the other day. And she was telling me about the gap year in college. And it just, I couldn't process it. Yeah, I know.

How far we've come. And I'm wondering if you've had any time to do that. And if you think that there's an inflection point along the way that was like, that was the moment in hindsight. The 04 Convention speech or Iowa. I'm going to name other things where I was attending those events. What role did Tommy play in your eyes? I think it's fair to say that like Zellig, he was there at every inflection point. Look, you guys were there and you remember.

Look, 2004 gave me a national platform and that was different. Although for me, at least winning the democratic primary in that Senate race was the inflection point because my bet always was that if I'd won that and I won that Senate seat, that I would have a platform. And I had some confidence that I'd have a message that potentially resonated. So in terms of the presidency, look, uh, you know, winning Iowa was at the heart of everything that happened, not just the fact that we won, but how we won. I continued, and I've said this before, the night of the Iowa caucus was my favorite moment in politics. Mine too. And that was before it was announced that we had won.

And I've told this story about just going to the school where I was going to kind of shake some hands as caucus goers flowed in. And it just felt good. You feel it not for me it just it felt good to see all these people from all these different walks of life and backgrounds and they were just going to go into a gym or a classroom and they were just gonna make an argument about why their candidate was best and why these issues were important and you could just feel this spirit and you said this is how this thing's supposed to work and a half centuries ago and if you could duplicate that night and that moment across the country and around the world you just feel you

felt at that time that there wasn't a problem we couldn't solve yeah yeah i was in a half-empty gym with an old man playing accordion Working for Hillary And it felt different You didn't have that same feel Just slightly different You're listening to Pod Save America The year is 2011 Yes So we work on the correspondence dinner

You are focused on the Bin Laden raid. We are writing jokes. We write a rant about an apprentice host. It's the funniest speech a president's ever given at the Correspondents Dinner. May have also caused him to run. Are we responsible? How should we feel about that? You know, look, it was a funny night.

And, John, you know, you did a great job. But I mean, I do notice a certain theme, which is that, you know, everybody's questions seem to be centered on their moment in the sun. I think we give ourselves too much credit to say you know that's why trump won uh you know he had churned up that whole birther thing uh well before that night which is part of the reason why it was funny yeah um and so uh you know and he's he's a very effective marketer and grabs attention as well as anybody in our culture. So clearly he had his sights on something. And what I remember about that night more than anything else was the fact that the next day, the very next morning, we were going to be making as big of a decision as I made during my presidency.

So it kind of washed away pretty quick. And, you know, what I also remember about that moment is the rapidity with which we went from the bin Laden raid and folks outside Washington chanting USA, one of the magical moments of our time here, to debt ceiling and the economy might be on the verge of collapsing again after we had just spent two years trying to yank it out of a great recession. I think that's one of the lessons you were asking earlier, John, about what I tell myself. I think I was pretty good about this, so I might not use my limited time travel on this piece of advice. But just understanding the enormous ups and downs of this place and the way in which everything feels like it's going great and then suddenly you can hit a pothole and you're careening off the side of the road.

And being able to maintain some sense of equilibrium through that process, I think is pretty important. When were you most scared in the White House? What was your scariest moment? Well, I think it was that moment when John Boehner didn't seem to be able to generate the votes to make sure that the U.S. didn't default. I remember starting drafting the speech. We had to start drafting the speech, and we were having these conversations with Jack Lew and others about what options, in fact, were available because it had never happened before. And there were all kinds of wacky ideas about how potentially you could have this massive coin. I mean, it was some primitive, you know, it was like out of the Stone Age or something. And I pictured rolling in some coin.

For those who are listening, it gets pretty technical. But there was this theory that I had the authority to just issue this through the mint. I could just issue this massive trillion dollar coin. A trillion dollar commemorative coin. Commemorative coin. And then on that basis, we could try to pay off our U.S. treasuries. And it was a very realistic possibility that we couldn't get the votes for that and we couldn't get those debts rolled over. and we would be in a situation where technically we're in default. And at that point you were in uncharted territory.

And what was also true was that in addition to talking to Jack Lew, Treasury Secretary, and my speech writers about a speech, there were also questions about whether any actions that i took might be violations of the law and so we had to be talking to lawyers um about you know uh potential challenges and legal actions and lawsuits from bondholders around the world and not fun it was it was my favorite night yeah but uh what was your favorite night you know i've i've said this and it it has never stopped being my favorite night the night we passed the affordable care act that was a big piece of business yeah and it was hard and it was tough. But I still remember Axelrod, whose wonderful daughter has had severe epilepsy most of her life, coming up to me and hugging me in tears and just reminding me of what it had been like for him when he was a young reporter and had no idea how he was going to pay

the bills for his daughter's treatments and the risks of whatever job he took, whether that stuff was covered or not. And it was very personal for a lot of people. And I think it also was a moment when you saw real courage out of members of Congress. Some of my favorite members of Congress voted for this thing. They lived in the toughest districts. The politics were bad. They ended up losing. Undoubtedly, consultants were telling them that they might lose their seats.

They were all pretty new, young guys who were at the start of their careers. And they said, you know what, this is why I'm here. And it was similar to that Iowa night in the sense that it vindicated a certain kind of politics and public service and why you get into this stuff. Who do you see out there in the Democratic Party today as a rising star that sort of has that sense of principle and courage that you see coming up, the new generation? You know, I think there's a bunch of folks who are doing really interesting stuff. My guy in Missouri, Kander, who lost but seems extraordinarily talented, seems like a sharp guy and i hope that he gets back on the horse uh you

know i remind him and others that uh i lost my first federal race you have mayors like garcetti in la or lander in new orleans who i think are really casim reed in atlanta really talented smart guys who seem to be able to navigate a lot of the ideological nonsense and just stay focused on getting the job done. In Congress, folks like Kamala Harris, who just got elected, people who've been there a while, like Michael Bennett, really good people and really talented and in it for the right reasons. And then we've got a bunch of

guys who used to work with you and are still trying to do something with their lives instead of having podcasts you got you know you got launching pad for fabro 2024 you know you got no you got michael blake you know uh you know who's now i gather running for vice chair of the dnc and you know guys like lesser and guys like Lesser in Massachusetts in the state senate. So I just feel like there's a generation out there that's moving. There's a little bit of a gap. In some ways, I was a little precocious, showed up a little earlier than maybe expected.

And so some of the talent is a little younger or just getting exposed, just getting started. But they're coming, and that's part of what makes me optimistic. This is Pod Save America. A lot of people that listen to this are people that care about the Affordable Care Act, and they're looking for ways to help. What would you tell them about the ways that they can get involved, be encouraged about fighting to preserve the gains of this bill? I think the work is local as opposed to federal. I would pay a lot of attention to what the Tea Party did fighting the Affordable Care Act.

You may disagree with the Tea Party, but they were effective in making sure that their views were heard and amplified. And so people working locally at town hall meetings, writing members of Congress personally, working local news. And the advantage we have is the truth is on our side. There are a lot of people who have been helped. We don't have to gild the lily on it. We don't have to pretend that there aren't some challenges in terms of people whose premiums may need to get subsidized a little bit more. There are rural communities where the choice of providers, doctors, hospitals isn't as big as it

should be. But generally speaking, the more we tell a story about how many people have actually been helped, the more pressure we are placing on this Congress and the president-elect to deliver on their claim and their promise that they can provide the same coverage or better coverage to everybody cheaper. And as I, I meant what I said, if they actually could do that, I'd support it. My guess is they can't because we spent a lot of time trying to figure out, could we do it better? And we knew that the politics of some of the elements of the Affordable Care Act wouldn't be easy to sell politically. The reason we did it the way we did it was because that was the best option available in a really complicated system. So I would just encourage everybody here, you can find a whole bunch of organizations

that are trying to amplify the importance of this issue and organizing, but focusing on not just the beltway, but focusing on congressional districts, town hall meetings, district offices. If members of Congress are getting flooded with phone calls and hearing a bunch of stories and local newscasts are talking about people who are going to lose their health care coverage, then at minimum it puts pressure on the incoming Congress and administration to step up. Mr. President, thank you so much for your time. I'll give you one more question. You've talked a lot about

we're all trying to get our paragraph right in history. Yeah. What do you hope that paragraph says about you? You know, it's probably too early for me to say. And, you know, since I'm notoriously long-winded, it probably spills over into three paragraphs. Then I got to call up fabs and say man how do we cut this thing um i i hope that it tells a story of a presidency and a period of inclusion and opportunity and community and democracy were advanced that

you know we pointed the country in a direction in which every kid mattered and in which treating people differently because of what they looked like or their faith or their sexual orientation became less acceptable. And we started rebuilding the ladders of opportunity for people who feel shut out from the economy. And most of all, that we made people believe that it is possible, if you're willing to get in the arena,

to move history. And when I think about what will most gratify me, it'll be if 20 years from now I can look back and I can say, look at all these people who first got involved, maybe even when they were too young to vote in government politics issues non-profits public service and that wave just kind of like cleansing wave washes over the country. And if that happens, then the details of how we dealt with climate change or whether the individual responsibility mandate on the Affordable Care Act was the right approach or not, that becomes less important. Because if we're getting the broad direction right,

this is a pretty ingenious country. They're full of ingenious people. And we'll figure it out. And that's what I want. I want everybody to feel like we can figure this out if we just don't waste a lot of time doing dumb stuff. Good paragraph. We just wanted to thank you for doing the podcast.

For giving us jobs. For the opportunities you gave us. And we're trying to think about the right way to how we think about you after all of this. The thing is that for most of us it's been 10 years of our lives since we went to work for you. And in that 10 years you never disappointed us.

Never gave us a reason to question it. And we're just really grateful for that. So thank you. That means a lot. You know, you guys were the change that we were waiting for, according to some really fine speech writer. All right. I'm proud of you guys.

Thanks, sir. Thank you. The war continues. It does. Yeah. It does. Take care. Thank you. The war continues. It does. Yeah. It does. Take care. Thank you.

Last interview. That's it. Done. You did it. Subscribe via iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts for new episodes every Monday and Thursday.