The Daily Show: Ears Edition - Barack Obama on "A Promised Land," Nurturing Future Leaders and Black Lives Matter

Episode Date: August 4, 2021

Barack Obama talks about his memoir "A Promised Land," discusses his many leadership programs worldwide and gives his take on the Black Lives Matter movement. Originally aired December 2020. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You're listening to Comedy Central. When 60 Minutes premiered in September 1968, there was nothing like it. This is 60 Minutes. It's a kind of a magazine for television. Very few have been given access to the treasures in our archives. But that's all about to change. Like none of this stuff gets looked at. That's what's incredible. I'm Seth Done of CBS News. Listen to 60 Minutes, a second look, starting September 17th, wherever you get your podcasts. Are you going to filibuster me? Or like, because I don't have all the time.

Do you want me to be a good at like... So is this like a roundabout way of saying? You just want me to give short, pith? Do you? Do it? Do it? Do it? Do it? Do it? Do it? Do it? Do it? Do it? Do it? Do it? Do it? Do it? Do it? Do it? Do it? Do it? Do it? Do? Do? Do? Do? Do? Do? Do? Do? Do? Do? Do? Do? Do? Do? Do? Do? Do? Do? Do? Do? Do? Do? Do? Do? Do? th? Do? Do? Do? Do? Do? Do? Do? Do? Do? Do? Do? Do? Do? Do? Do? Do? Do? Do? Do? Do? Do? Do? Do? Do? Do? Do? Do? Do? Do? Do? Do? Do? Do? Do? Do? Do? Do? Do? Do? Do? Do? Do? Do? No? No? No? No? No? No? No? No? No? No? No? No? No? No? No? No? No? No? No? No? No? No? I. I. th. th. th. th. th. th. the th. th. th. th. th. the th. th. the the th. the the the the the. the. the. the. the you just want me to give short pithy answer. No I don't want short questions. You want me to speed up? You want me to talk faster? No, no, no, please, Mr. President. I will not, I will not purposely filibuster, but sometimes I will have a pause as I'm formulating my thoughts, as you well know. Michelle, Michelle has been speeding up my auto, my audio book. So you know I guess you can press a button so it plays like yeah you can do like 1.25 or 1.5 yeah yeah yeah you're a one and a half guy you're definitely one and a half guy. I was a little offended by that but

that's okay. That's fine. It doesn't it doesn't communicate the depth of feeling with which I'm doing the reading but it's okay. How do you like to the, the, the, the. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the th. th. th. to to to to to th. thi. to to to to to to. to. to. to. to. the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. the the the the the the the the the the to. to. to. to. to. to. to. to. to. to. to. to. to. to. to. to. to. to. to. to. to. the'm doing the reading, but it's okay. How do you like being referred to, like just as a human being? Do you like Mr. President? People call me Barack, but then sometimes some folks feel awkward doing it. Obviously, that's what my friends call me. So I consider you a friend, but you may feel, you know, so... No, no, no, the people, the people will feel like... Like, even Africans will... They'll write me letter saying, how dare you... This is my point.

So I don't want to get you in trouble. So you can say, Mr. President, you can call me POTUS. My favorite one was Obizal. That was my favorite. Please call me that. Please call me that. Mr. President, welcome, to to to to to the Daily Social Distancing Show. I am very happy to be here with you. You're out there promoting a brand new book, a promised land, a 700-page book, if I may add.

I love reading your stuff, don't get me wrong, but I would have like 350, 350, why 700 pages? You know, I would have broken it up even more, but, you know, the publishers thought that breaking it up into two volumes would be about right. And look, the goal of the book was to give people a sense of what it's like to be in the White House as a normal person, finding themselves in extraordinary circumstances. And I think part of the goal, particularly for young people, I wanted them to get a sense that not everybody's going to end up being president,

but if you decide that your voice makes a difference, if you decide that you can have an impact, then through the ups and downs you will end up having some pretty extraordinary experiences and I wanted to be an encouragement for people to say you know the guy yeah he's okay but he's not a so special and look what he ended up doing maybe I can do something something as well. It feels like this book is Barack Obama convincing Barack Obama to remain optimistic. And what I mean by convincing Barack Obama, I think of like a young Barack Obama, I think

of a fledgling Barack Obama, and not trying to emulate you per se, but rather anyone who's trying to make a change in the world or their world. That's what it feels like. If you are writing to young people to be optimistic in the book, what are some of the frustrations that you understand on their side that may hinder that optimism? You know, because if a young person says, yeah, but this system right now is crumbling more and more, how do you maintain that optimism, or do you think there has to be a point where they go, I'm not optimistic, I'm just fighting to break what it is, to create, to create, to create, to, to, the, the, the, the, the, the, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, their, the, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, there has to be a point where they go, I'm not optimistic, I'm just fighting to break what it is to create something new? Part of the reason that it's 700 pages long is because by reading the book, they'll see, man, there are a lot of structural problems or barriers in making this place better.

We're learning right now in vivid, a vivid example of the fact that our democracy is not the way we would imagine it to be, right? There are all kinds of elements to it where the most votes don't necessarily translate into the equivalent amount of power. Very popular proposals can wither on the vine because of a filibuster in the Senate. And so I don't try to gloss those over. You know, the Paris Accord did not solve climate change, but it created the first global framework whereby all countries agreed we have to do something about this.

And here's a mechanism to do it. You can still be terrified about the pace at which we are burning up the planet and yet think that was a worthwhile endeavor because it gives us at least the opportunity maybe three, four or five years down the road to keep building on that. So that is the kind of mentality I want young people to have. A certain impatience, a certain frustration, a frustration the frustration the frustration the frustration thiiiiiiiiii their their their their their their their the road to keep building on that. So that is the kind of mentality I want young people to have. A certain impatience, a certain frustration, a certain anger about the status quo. There are times now where you have younger activists criticizing me for Obama, why didn't you take care of this or that or the other? And I welcome them feeling frustrated and impatient,

because that's how I was before I got started. And then they'll get their own knocks on the head. And some stuff won't work out exactly the way they want. But the impulse is the one that I want to encourage. Because it's as a consequence of that constant striving and imagining something better, that things don't get exactly as we wanted, but they get better.

You're a very serious person because, I mean, you're a president of the United States, but at the same time, you're a lot more fun than a lot of people think, you know? I'm constantly trying to explain to people people people people people people people people people people people people the people the people th thi people thi people.. I thi thi th. th. th. th fun than a lot of people think, you know? I'm constantly trying to explain to people I'm a funny guy, but I don't know. But you really are, you really, really are. And what I liked in the book is, there are moments where there's just like a roasting of people or life. Like the G20, I've never, I've never heard a world leader describe the way to the book, the high school of it all. I wondered on a personal level, have you maintained connections with those world leaders as like,

like, do you, do you send Angola Merkel memes? Do you, like, who are you still close with just as a human being? You know, I don't send Angola Merkel memes, but I talk to her sometimes. Sometimes, you know, she'll give me a call, and we'll trade notes. And, and we'll, and we'll, their, we'll, the, and, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, too, too, too, too, too, too, too, too, too, too, too, the, the, the, the, notes. You know, there are a handful of folks who, you've been in the foxhole with, right? You've done some good, important work. Some of them are still in power,

so I don't want to mention that, you know, that I'm giving them a call, because, you know, who knows? That might get them in trouble. You mentioned somebody like an Angola Merkel. Look, you know, the stance she took in Europe relative to immigration, and the enormous political cost she paid for that, and yet there was something inside her that said, look, I'm not going to simply abandon a million people who are in desperate need. You know, you see that in somebody and you say, it encourages you that for all the cruelty and

venality and corruption around the world, there are a lot of good people doing good work and, thrown the thee to sign up to the world. There are a lot of good people doing good work, and some of them actually rise to significant positions of power. And in that sense, democracy can work the way it's supposed to. If we have a vigil and citizenry, and that's not always the case. You've started leadership programs, not just in South Africa, but all over the world. The Obama Foundation has set about on a journey to inspire to inspire the to inspire to the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the th.... And th. And th. And th. And the, and the, and the, and the, and the, and tham, and tham, and some tham, and some tham, and some thia, and some tham, and some tham, tham, tham, tham, tham, tham, tham, and some, tham, and some, and some, and some, and some, and some, and some, and some, and some, tham, and th. And some, and th. And the, and the, and the, and the, and the, and the, and the the, and the, and th's not always the case. You've started leadership programs, not just in South Africa, but all over the world. The Obama Foundation has set about on a journey to inspire young people to grow up, to become leaders.

Growing up in South Africa, I was taught about the different levels of what a struggle is going to be. You know, the freedom fighters may not necessarily be the best politicians. The best politicians may not necessarily be the best leaders. The best activist may not be the best organizers and so on and so forth. Everyone has a role to play in trying to get to a certain place. And so I wonder, when you set up these, you know, this leadership academy that's all over the globe, you know, you're clearly trying to create many Obamas everywhere, which is probably like a fever dream of the right, but what you're trying to do is create something specific, and I would like to know what that is.

What do you believe a leader is, not just somebody who's in power, but a leader? The program we did in Johannesburg, we gathered up 200 young leaders from 50 countries on the continent of Africa. And it was as varied, you had young women who had started rural health clinics. Yeah. You had MPs, you know, who had taken a more conventional political route.

You had entrepreneurs. The thing they all had in common, though, was this sense not only that the world could be better and that they had a role to play in it, but also the belief that they couldn't do it by themselves and that they had to, in some ways, unlock the potential and power of other people. A speech I gave in Johannesburg in conjunction with that, it was for the anniversary of Mandela's 100th anniversary. Where I contrasted that sort of democratic, inclusive leadership to the strongman leadership

that in some ways we've seen ascendant in certain parts of the world, in some ways has was ascendant here in the United States, and those are two different stories of what it means to be a leader and and power and that conflict that battle between a more democratic inclusive vision and one that's top-down, dominant, subordinate, subordinate. That's a contest that's taking place here in the United States and around the world. And it's not going to be finished just because the elections over and Donald Trump was defeated.

Because you see examples of this in the Philippines, in Hungary, in a variety of countries in Africa and Asia, and so that contest is going to continue. What I find fascinating about the conversation that a lot of Americans are having now, and you talk about this in the book as well, is how America's influence in the world has diminished over the past few years, you know, how influence in the world has diminished over the past few years. You know, how countries around the world have no longer said, what is America doing, we'll work with them.

It's been more like, no, guys, we can't wait for America, we're doing our own thing. But I wonder, as somebody who has grown up in other parts of the world, is there an argument that maybe that's a good thing that the world doesn't follow America anymore? Or what would the inverse of that argument be? Like, should the world follow America? Or is it time for the world to start doing its own thing and America to be less the world police?

I think it is a good thing that other countries catch up and have their own capabilities and their own agency? That's, th, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, th, th, th, th, that's, what, what, what, what, th w w w w w w wa, what, what, what, what's, what's, what's, what's, what's, what's, what's, what's, what would would would would would would would thi, what would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's that's that's that's that's that's their their their their own capabilities and their own agency. That's not something that I think America should fear. My argument would be that even in a more multipolar world, where you don't have just one big power, but you have other countries who are coming into their own. The principles that America articulated at its best about rule of law, human rights, freedom of speech, democracy. Those values, at least I choose to believe, are not exclusively American. Yeah. You as somebody who lived in South Africa know the play that in other countries sometimes you

hear where somebody who's doing something entirely for power and money and influence will say, if they're criticized or say, ah, you've been just influenced by Western thinking, that's colonial thinking. No, no, no, no. You are stealing from your people. And when we criticize you don't, don't, don't claim that somehow, uh, that's, uh, that's somebody, uh, that's, that, that, that, that, that, that, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's somebody, thi, thi, thi, that's somebody, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. th no, no, no. You are stealing from your people. Don't, and when we criticize you, don't claim that somehow this is some American hegemony being asserted against you. We're calling you on the fact that you're a thief. I think it's important for us to, to recognize that for all its failings, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, the, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that, that, that, that, that's, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, the, the, the, the, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, their, their, their, their, their, that for all its failings, the values that America is often articulated on the world stage have been ones that I would still believe in and that a lot of people took comfort from.

And when we are not asserting them, oftentimes they don't, they don't play out on the world stage. I sometimes wondered if you ever grappled with the difficulty of the paradox that America was creating in what it was trying to do in the world and then what its actions were sometimes creating in the world, you know? I mean I think about that in the Middle East, you know, wars that have been started under false pretenses, people who have been killed, who had nothing to do, you know, and so I wonder as someone who had to make decisions and someone who was in that leadership position, do you sometimes grapple with how America did or did not help itself in how it acted with the world? Because in the world, like, I'll tell you as an international person, we would oftentimes, tell you, thiii, th....... I, th. I, th. I, th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, and I, and I'm, and I'm, and I'm, and I'm thr, and, and I'm, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, th. And, I th. And, I. And, I. And, I'm, I'm, I'm, th. And, I'm, I'm, th. And, th. And, I'm, th. th. th. th. th to, I'm, th th th th to, th th then you'd be like, but also, man, sometimes they just break the rules and no one can say

anything about it. Absolutely. And I record examples in the book of where I'm grappling with this, right? And one of the interesting challenges of being president of the United States, but I think being head of government or state in any country is you inherit a legacy, right? So if I come in as president and I can't undo the Iraq war, the decision to go into Iraq. Now I can manage as best I can how we can wind down that war, mitigate some of the damage that's been done, but I can't reverse it. Did you ever envy though how like Trump just came in and basically broke shit though?

Because I mean he didn't care. No, I didn't envy it because I do care. And I and I do care. And I do not think that is an option to simply pretend that the legacy of problems or issues that you inherit are somehow things you can just brush aside. So the answer is yes. I would struggle with the fact that the fact that is a fact So the answer is yes. I would struggle with the fact that any action I took, particularly when you're talking about counterterrorism. That's probably the area where I wrestled with this most, because my obligation

first and foremost in the United States was to make sure that people didn't get hurt. That's sort of the bare minimum that you expect out of a nation state that you're living in is that you can defend against harm. Because you're dealing with non-state actors, that meant that by the time I took office, you had networks that were embedded in societies, not necessarily supported by those societies, but they're there, and they are plotting and their planning, and that wasn't made up. And there were organizations that if they could blow up the New York subway system, they would. If they could get their hands on a biological weapon, they would use it. You then are wrestling with how do I protect the American people from those actors, but do it in

a way that is morally and ethically justified. And war is madness. Kinetic action of any sort, military action of any sort that results in death and destruction at a certain level is not the thing I would want humanity to do. And what happens to people is tragic. It is not something you gloss over. What it does to our soldiers and our troops, as I talk about in the book.

It's not just the harm that our young men and women suffered, and I would witness in Walter Reed, but it's also how it changes them internally when they have engaged in violence, even if necessary and justified against others. So the best I could come up with was to never glorify it, to never pretend like it isn't a dilemma. And so those kinds of questions I think are ones that not only should American leaders

have to grapple with, but I think the American people have to be aware of. And sometimes the media does not do a very good job. It's a very binary, you know, the Iraq war. It's glorious for the first year and a half and then suddenly it's not. Yes. And we're shocked that us invading another country might turn out to be messy.

Hopefully that's not a lesson we have to repeatedly re-learn. 2020 was a year for many of racial reckoning. You know, it was the year when people of all ages took to the streets, black and white alike and said, we need to change the way the police deal with people in this country, predominantly black people in this country. It was an interesting time as well because, I mean, your presidency, as you know, better than anyone, and people thought, well, that is it.

We're now in a post-racial utopia. Barack Obama's in the White House. We have half-black, half-white, all-black, good times. Let's have a good one. And then people saw that there was still a lot of work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work the to work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work to be to be to be to be to be to be to be to be to be to be to be to be to be to be to be to be to be to be to be to be to be to be to be to be to be to be to be to be to be their their their their their their their their their to be to be to be to be to be to be to be to be to be their their their their their their their their their their their the about The movement as you see it. The problem I have with headlines sometimes is like people take things out of context, etc But some activists criticized you for saying they've got to be careful of snappy slogans, you know like defund the police because It loses people, but I wonder do you think that the slogan is off is the thing that makes people for or against you? Or do you think? People are just going to be for or? I? I? I? I th th th th th th th th th th th th th thi th th th thi th thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi that people that people that people th that thi thi that people that th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th that people that people that people th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th thi thi people thi thi thi thi thi thi ta ta. people ta ta. people are people are people are people are ta ta ta. people ta. People are people ta ta. People are people take ta that that slogan is the thing that makes people for or against you, or do you think people are just going to be for or against you and then the slogan

doesn't really mean as much? And what I mean by that is, like Donald Trump's Make America Great Again, it's not a, it's not a very divisive slogan if you look at America Great Again. That's a great slogan. tho' thiiii, th, th, th, th, th, th, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi's thi's thi's thi's thi's thi's thi's thi's tho, thi's thi, thi, thi, tho, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, th. And, th. And, th. And, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi. And, thi. And, thi. And, thi's thiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii. And, thi.text said something else when you're thinking of that as someone who's great at slogans by the way. I mean yes we can. It's snappy, it worked. Although as I said in the book I actually thought it was corny. I didn't I didn't like it that much when my team came up with it. And then they went to ask Michelle, and Michelle said, no, it's not corny, it's fine. So clearly, she had a better political brain than I did on this.

Hey, I'm glad you actually brought this up because, you know, what's been fascinating while I've been on this book tour is, you know, people have asked me what's my source of optimism, and uniformly what I have said is, nothing made me more optimistic during a very difficult year than the activism that we saw in the wake of George Floyd's murder and Black Lives Matter. And I have consistently believed that their courage, activism, media savvy, strategic resolve,

far exceeds anything that I could have done at their age. And I think has shifted the conversation in ways that I would not even imagine a couple of years ago. So, throughout this slew of compliments, I then said, well, what do you think about the particular slogan defund the police? And I said, well, that particular slogan, I think the concern is that there may be potential allies out there that you lose, and the issue always is how do you get enough people to support your cause that you can actually institutionalize it and translate it into laws, structures and so forth. There were two or three writers who I admire who wrote,

Obama's making an omission to chastise Black Lives Matter and you go, what, hold on a second, I just spent the whole summer complimenting them. What are you talking about? The reason it caught attention, I suspect, is there were some in the Democratic Party who suggested the reason we didn't do better in the congressional elections this time out was because of this phrase. And I think that people assumed that somehow I was making an argument that that's why we didn't get a bigger democratic majority. That actually was not the point I was making.

I was making a very particular point around if we in fact want to translate the very legitimate belief that how we do policing needs to change and that if there is for example a homeless guy ranting and railing in the middle of the street, sending a mental health worker rather than an armed, untrained police officer to deal with that person might be a better outcome for all of us and make us safer, right? That if we describe that to not just white folks but let's say Michelle's mom, that makes sense to them. But if we say defund the police, not just white folks, but Michelle's mom might say,

if I'm getting robbed, who am I going to call and is somebody going to show up? So the issue here becomes, you know, at any given time, how are we translating and using language? Not to make people more comfortable, quote-unquote, right, because that's always a strain in historically, right? The concern in these debates is also, is often, oh, are we just trying to make white people comfortable rather than speaking truth to power, right? That's the framework we tend to think about these things. Right, yeah. The issue to me is not making them comfortable, it, it, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, that is, right, that is, right, right, right, right, right, right, that, that is, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, that is, that is, that is, that is, that is, that is, right? That's the framework we tend to think about these things.

The issue to me is not making them comfortable. It is, can we be precise with our language enough that people who might be persuaded around that particular issue to make a particular change that gets a particular result that we want, what's the best way for us to describe that? So what you're basically saying is we should workshop all of our slogans with Michelle. That's what I hear you saying. That probably would be wise.

It would probably work, but I want to go back to something you said earlier, which I think is really important. And I said this in the wake of some of this criticism. I said, look, part of this is also, everybody has different roles to play. An activist, a movement leader, is going to provide a prophetic voice and speak certain truths that somebody who is going to be elected into office will not be able to say.

I re-read James Baldwin's Fire Next Time this summer. How is it that something written 50 years ago, 55 years ago, yeah, yeah. Applies directly today, right? Despite everything that's happened. To me, that is as searing and as honest a portrayal of the gaping wound of race in America. But of course, James Baldwin can be elected to the U.S. Senate or unlikely that he would want to be the mayor of a city who's responsible for figuring out how do I deal with the

police union, right? That's somebody else's role. And all these roles are important. And so, you know, why do you think, if I may interrupt, why do you think, though, that Republicans or right right wingers now do that though? That's something that I've struggled to understand. You see now, even in this election, I mean, some of the Republicans who were running were Q&N supporters and they were going, we're running and this is what, and some of them were winning. Some of them are so extreme and they're winning. And so I sometimes wonder if there's this, is it just a political thing in America where if you, if you're in the Republican

Party you can be completely bombastic in what you believe in and then as a Democrat you're trying to tow the line between centrist and and left leaning? No, well, because I think, in fact, the Republican Party is the minority party in this country. The only reason that it doesn't look like they're the Republican Party is the minority party in this country. The only reason that it doesn't look like they're the minority party is because of structures like the U.S. Senate and the electoral college that don't render them the majority party. So they have certain built-in advantages around power given their population distribution and how our government works. But the truth of the matter is that 60 percent of the people are their population distribution and how our government works.

But the truth of the matter is that 60% of the people are occupying what I would consider a more reality-based universe and those are the constituents we're speaking to and that is a more diverse group. You know I describe in the book the first time I go to the, uh, the, uh, the, uh, the truth, the to-tha-a th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th-a thirty thirty thirty thirty thirty thirty thirty thirty thirty thirty thirty the the the the the the the the the the the the the th, is thirty the the thi-athat is a more diverse group. You know, I described in the book the first time I go to the Republican House caucus to speak to him. And I think there was an Asian guy or gal and maybe a couple of Hispanics and that was it. It is much more homogeneous, which means that, yes, they have to do less work, but it also means that they can talk to themselves.

And as a consequence of the way our democracy, our republic is structured, they don't have to appeal to as broad of a base. That's not fair, but I at least would prefer not having the progressives model ourselves out of, or model ourselves on, on the current Republican Party. That doesn't feel like a good strategy to me to get the outcomes that we want. Let's talk a little bit about, let's loosen things up. Let's unbutton one of those buttons on the shirt.

As someone who I consider to be one of the best deliverers of jokes and roasts. Are you going to be more careful going forward about who you roast? And I say this because you roasted Donald Trump, he ran for president. You roasted Kanye West, he ran for president. So I don't know if you've noticed, but you have an ability to inspire people to run for the highest office in the land with some of the jokes that you tell about them? Well, I should roast people, people I admire more.

I'll start roasting you, man. Who knows? Although you weren't born here, so, you know, but look, I was able to get away with it apparently. Who knows? Um, before I let you go, I wanted to know one last thing, and that is, being president of the United States is arguably the toughest job in the world. When you transition back to personal life, I wonder what that is like, because unlike you, I don't have that power. I've never been able to just change a thing in the world or do something about it.

But now in many ways you are like me, in that you see the thing on the TV and then you get angry or sad, but you cannot really do anything about it. And so I wonder, as former President Barack Obama, have you transitioned into that completely or do you find different ways to try and fix the problems that you see in the world? Well first of all I'm not anything like you I still have a lot more influence on cloud So let's just be clear. Come on man I was hoping you try to keep things in perspective. I was hoping you just be like yeah, you know Trevor in many ways look I have the truth is that I did not have those kinds of withdrawals and I know that they're people who I know who've had them when they leave public life and very visibly, you know, they're

want to get back on stage. Yeah. Michelle and I, that's something we share. We feel good about the work we did. And, the thi, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, they want to get back on stage. Michelle and I, that's something we share. We feel good about the work we did. We don't feel anxiety about not being the center of attention. We get frustrated like I think citizens around the world and here in the country do, when we see something unjust or unfair. And, yes, the goal I think for us is to to the country do, when we see something unjust or unfair. And yes, the goal I think for us is to find new ways to have that same impact. Understanding that we'll never have the exact same impact as you have in the Oval Office. But, you know, a lot of the work around the foundation is, you know, you said create a lot of Obama's,

I'm not sure that's the goal. But if 10 years, 20 years down the road, there are 1,000, 10,000, 100,000 young people who are now moving into positions of authority and power, and in some ways have been shaped by our example in a positive way, yeah, that's the legacy that may exceed anything that we did while we were in our formal positions. And that feels pretty good. Well, I could talk to you for hours, but luckily I have a 700-page book to answer the rest of my questions. Thank you for joining me.

Thank you for taking the time. And yeah, thank you for being you. Mr. President, aka Obizal. Thank you for joining me on the Daily Social. I enjoyed it, man. We'll do it again. Volume 2. The Daily Show with cover no nights at 11th.

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