TDS Time Machine | Interviews with Obama

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Speaker 5 You're listening to Comedy Central.

Speaker 6 My guest tonight, a Democratic senator representing the great state of Illinois, his book is Dreams from My Father, a story of race and inheritance.

Speaker 6 Joining us via satellite from Washington, D.C., please welcome Senator Barack Obama to the program. Senator, thanks for being on.

Speaker 6 How are you, sir?

Speaker 6 Hey, John.

Speaker 6 All right, kids.

Speaker 6 Settle down.

Speaker 6 How are you, sir?

Speaker 8 I am doing great. How are you?

Speaker 6 Very well, sir. Thank you so much for joining us.
I know that you had to stay in Washington to vote on a particular defense bill. Is that correct?

Speaker 10 Well, you know, we thought it was a defense bill.

Speaker 8 It turned out that it was a health insurance bill.

Speaker 8 My My staff figured I should go and be on the Jon Stewart show anyway, but I thought maybe health care for the American people was a little more important.

Speaker 3 Senator,

Speaker 6 do you typically not find out what you're voting on until you get there that day?

Speaker 8 That is normally how we organize ourselves around here.

Speaker 8 I don't know if you can tell by the results.

Speaker 12 Sometimes,

Speaker 12 let me ask you a question.

Speaker 6 Or is that a thing they do only to freshman senators?

Speaker 6 Is there a hazing process? Do you have to carry the gavels in and out?

Speaker 13 Is there anything that goes on?

Speaker 8 They make me sharpen pencils, and sometimes I have to stand between Harry Reed and Bill Frist.

Speaker 6 That can be a difficult job. Speaking of which, the Democrats have suddenly,

Speaker 10 in the past, let's say, week,

Speaker 6 Seem to have gained a bit of a voice and a bit of traction. Are you finding that as well for yourselves down there? Is there a palpable feeling?

Speaker 8 I think the Democrats are feeling a little frisky right now.

Speaker 9 No doubt about it.

Speaker 6 Frisky in terms of

Speaker 8 politically speaking.

Speaker 6 Is it because you feel like now you've got a strategy or that these guys are imploding so viciously

Speaker 6 that if you just stand back and get out of the way, people are going to have to vote for the other party?

Speaker 6 Which is which?

Speaker 8 Look,

Speaker 8 there is no doubt that George Bush has had a tough couple of weeks.

Speaker 8 We don't underestimate their political skills. I think what we do is

Speaker 8 question their governing skills. And some of the issues that we've been talking about on Iraq, on health care, on public infrastructure, we've been talking about for a while.

Speaker 8 I do think that part of what's happening is the mainstream media is more critical and paying more attention to what's happening, and that gives it more traction than we had before.

Speaker 6 See, I don't have a television, so

Speaker 6 I'm not sure what's getting out there into the ether.

Speaker 6 But I always wonder, you know, we've had a few Democrats on the show, Democratic senators, a couple of governors, and I always say, so what specifically would you guys do?

Speaker 6 And then they always say something like, we would honor the people.

Speaker 6 We would help working families.

Speaker 14 Is there something more specific

Speaker 6 that you have in mind? If Barack Obama was in charge of the Iraq policy, what would we be doing right now?

Speaker 8 Well, you know, Iraq is sort of a situation where you've got a guy who drove the bus into the ditch.

Speaker 9 You know,

Speaker 8 you obviously have to get the bus out of the ditch, and that's not easy to do, although you probably should fire the driver.

Speaker 15 So

Speaker 8 seriously, this is a huge problem. I was opposed to the war even before I was in the Senate.

Speaker 8 Now the question is, how fast can we get our troops home without causing all-out chaos in Iraq? And I think that you're looking at December 15th as

Speaker 8 the date for the next parliamentary elections. That has to be a benchmark where we say to ourselves,

Speaker 8 we're not going to have a military solution to this. We can't replace the

Speaker 8 the revolutionary guard of Saddam Hussein in holding this country together.

Speaker 8 If the Iraqis are serious about keeping the country together, then we should be able to start phasing out our troops by next year. And we've got to have specific benchmarks to do that.

Speaker 6 Let me ask you a question, Senator.

Speaker 16 Who's the worst senator?

Speaker 6 Let's say you're looking around, and

Speaker 6 let's say some guy comes in and you're like, oh, crap, it's that guy. That guy's terrible.

Speaker 9 Is there somebody that you just think, man, that guy, he can't even read?

Speaker 11 Nothing?

Speaker 8 You know,

Speaker 8 they all have their qualities.

Speaker 8 I think

Speaker 8 there are a couple guys where you do sort of think,

Speaker 8 how did you get here exactly?

Speaker 6 But

Speaker 6 mostly you feel like you can work with these guys.

Speaker 8 You know, the truth is that

Speaker 8 part of the criteria for getting elected is that you've got to have some

Speaker 15 likable quality.

Speaker 10 You've been vetted.

Speaker 9 Of some sort.

Speaker 8 And most of the folks really are trying to represent their constituencies as best as they know how.

Speaker 6 Do you feel pressure, Senator? You know, you come in with an awful lot of hopes and dreams on your shoulder. A lot of people look at you as kind of the new vanguard.

Speaker 6 Do you feel that pressure or are you just doing your job, doing your thing?

Speaker 8 Well, you know, I don't feel a lot of pressure. I think that if I speak honestly, if I try to work hard and do the best possible job that I can, then then I think things will work out pretty well.

Speaker 8 It is true, I worry about the hype.

Speaker 8 The only person more overhyped than me is you.

Speaker 8 Well done, sir. Well done.

Speaker 12 Dream of other. That's about the best answer I think I've ever heard.

Speaker 6 Thank you so much for joining us. Please come and see us in person when you're in New York.
We'd love to have you here.

Speaker 8 I would look forward to it. I'm a huge fan, and I've gotten cool points both with my wife, who loves your show, and also with my four-year-old who remembers you from Elmo Palooza.

Speaker 13 Oh, thank you.

Speaker 12 I thought you were going to say

Speaker 6 from your four-year-old who also watches the show because that's really the age group that we're aiming at here.

Speaker 6 His book is Dreams for My Father. It's on the bookshelves now.
Senator, thanks for joining us. Senator Barack Obama.

Speaker 6 My guest tonight, a Democratic senator from Illinois. He is also running for president.
Please Please welcome back to the show Senator Barack Obama.

Speaker 12 Senator.

Speaker 6 Senator, thanks for joining us.

Speaker 9 John, it is good to be here.

Speaker 6 The effect that you have on a crowd, it's unusual for a politician. You do have,

Speaker 6 there is a certain inspirational quality to you. My question is,

Speaker 6 is that really something America is going to go for?

Speaker 9 Well, we're going to find out. We're going to find out.

Speaker 9 We've been just having a wonderful time traveling all across the country.

Speaker 9 And we've been getting these enormous crowds, 20,000 people in Atlanta, 20,000 people in Austin, Texas, 10,000 people in Iowa City. And

Speaker 9 we're especially seeing a lot of young people.

Speaker 9 And that is one of the things that's most exciting about the campaign is folks who haven't seen a lot of inspiration in politics most of their lives suddenly taking this seriously.

Speaker 9 And coming out to see it.

Speaker 6 And do you have, if I may, kegs? Because

Speaker 6 that also can draw them.

Speaker 9 We don't like to divulge our secrets.

Speaker 6 I think that's wise.

Speaker 6 You've been taking, this is amazing. I just pulled some quick clips from the paper because the process that we have in which we elect our officials is so insane.

Speaker 6 I was on the web yesterday. Your wife, I guess, had been giving a speech in Iowa in which she mentioned that she feels that she wanted to take care of her own household.

Speaker 6 She felt like you've got to be able to take care of your own house. Right.
To really feel like you can take care of the White House. I turned on Drudge.
It said,

Speaker 6 Obama's wife slams Hillary.

Speaker 6 You mentioned something about going after Al-Qaeda in Pakistan. This says Obama stumbles and bumbles on the Al-Qaeda question.

Speaker 6 Bam bombs himself in new gaffe.

Speaker 6 This is my favorite. Angry Obama the pothead is not how we remember him.

Speaker 6 Has the insanity of this process sunk in on you yet?

Speaker 12 You know,

Speaker 9 every day

Speaker 9 it reveals itself in new ways. And, you know,

Speaker 9 I think that's part of what people are looking to our campaign to see is just some normalcy and some common sense.

Speaker 9 You know, I was mentioning that we were preparing for the debate and we had an 8 o'clock in the morning debate. in Iowa.

Speaker 6 This was like the 27th of the debate.

Speaker 10 They're real.

Speaker 9 And you know,

Speaker 9 it's always a shock to the system when Sunday morning you wake up and you're face to face with Mike Gravel.

Speaker 10 Yes. And

Speaker 9 so we're preparing and one of my staff said,

Speaker 9 the thing you got to understand is this isn't on the level.

Speaker 9 And I think that really strikes

Speaker 9 to what people are frustrated with in politics is that so much of what we talk about, so much of what we say,

Speaker 9 it's not true. People know it's not true.
All the insiders understand that

Speaker 9 we're just game playing, and in the meantime, you've got these hugely serious problems, which are true.

Speaker 6 Do you feel like you're stuck in a narrative now? And the narrative is

Speaker 6 Hillary Clinton is unlikable, but knows what she's doing. Obama is inexperienced, but brings change.

Speaker 6 And that narrative, no matter what you do, because it's easily categorized, the media or everyone else will just slip whatever happens into into those two narratives.

Speaker 9 That's what's happening right now. They will probably find something new later to talk about.

Speaker 9 Can you tell us what that will be?

Speaker 16 We don't know yet.

Speaker 9 Whatever sells papers.

Speaker 6 Whatever sells papers. Whatever sells papers.
Does your campaign, do you find yourself falling into promoting those narratives as well?

Speaker 6 Is it hard as a campaigner to not see yourself then as a product as well?

Speaker 9 Well, what happened, let's take the example of experience.

Speaker 9 We try to remind people, nobody had a longer resume than Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, and that hasn't worked out so well.

Speaker 16 And so

Speaker 9 what we try to do is break down these narratives and get to

Speaker 9 the heart of the question. So when people talk about experience, what they really want to know is, does he have good judgment?

Speaker 9 And you hope that if somebody has more experience, it gives them better judgment.

Speaker 9 Of course, everybody knows a lot of 50 and 60 and 70 year olds that don't have good judgment because they keep on making the same mistakes over and over again.

Speaker 9 And so what we want to try to do is to start talking about judgment, how do we actually get stuff done, what's common sense, and

Speaker 9 what's been interesting, for example, on

Speaker 9 not using nuclear weapons to bomb an al-Qaeda camp, for example. Initially, everybody said, oh, that's a gaffe.

Speaker 9 And then suddenly reporters started talking to military experts who said, well, why why would you even consider using nuclear weapons? And

Speaker 9 some of the press scratch their head and say, hmm. And you notice that...
It turns it around. It turns it around.

Speaker 9 And that's how we continually have to respond, is to just push against the conventional wisdom, push against the habits of thought.

Speaker 9 It's the same way that we got into Iraq, was nobody is willing to ask tough questions and there's a challenge conventional wisdom. And

Speaker 9 that's what we've got to do.

Speaker 6 Well, that's what's great about it is the way they've responded is we agree with Barack on those things. We just didn't know you were allowed to say it publicly.

Speaker 6 And that's been the best part about it. We'll take a commercial break.
We'll be right back with Senator Barack Obama.

Speaker 6 Run the bots.

Speaker 2 We're here with Senator Barack Obama.

Speaker 6 With the experiencing thing, have you thought about running a smaller country first?

Speaker 9 No, you know, what I did think about, though, was invading a smaller country.

Speaker 6 Where we need to get some popularity.

Speaker 9 Grenada? Grenada or,

Speaker 6 you know, well, that's a gaff. I don't know how that's going to show up in the headlines tomorrow.
That's a big one. Now, listen,

Speaker 6 what do you think about, you definitely also have a little bit of that Hollywood flair. You're going to start drawing to the celebrities.
Oprah is going to throw you up as a fundraiser.

Speaker 13 That's right.

Speaker 6 Why would, that doesn't seem good.

Speaker 9 And I'll tell you why.

Speaker 6 I still remember Howard Dean in Iowa with Martin Sheen introducing him, quoting an Indian Indian poet to a caucus group of literally like AFL CIO workers and just seeing their faces like this.

Speaker 2 What is he talking about?

Speaker 10 Well, you know, you don't use folks

Speaker 9 in that way. Look, I think having Oprah support is wonderful.
I think having

Speaker 9 celebrities want to do stuff for you. But the truth is, in Iowa, in New Hampshire,

Speaker 9 People just want to talk to you. They want to lift the hood.
They want to kick the tires. They want to look you in the eye.
They want to get a sense.

Speaker 9 are you telling the truth? And

Speaker 9 there's nobody that can do that job other than you.

Speaker 6 And Iowa can be one on the ground.

Speaker 9 Iowa can be one on the ground, and one of the things that we've been so excited about is just seeing the volunteer energy. And you get these young people

Speaker 9 from Iowa who are volunteering, coming into the office, and

Speaker 9 people,

Speaker 9 you know, they're impressed with that.

Speaker 9 And that's part of the message we're trying to send in the campaign is that the only way we can break out of the gridlock and overcome the special interests and the lobbyists is if people get involved and they get engaged and we break out of this sort of red state, blue state, half the country is divided, there's nothing we can do about it.

Speaker 9 You know, we've just got to battle it out.

Speaker 6 Can a senator do it?

Speaker 6 So often now it's the governors. Is there something about, because the Senate, it's very hard to run on your record in the Senate because the Senate is so

Speaker 6 paralyzed and nuanced.

Speaker 9 Well, it's paralyzed and it's designed for you to take bad votes, right? And

Speaker 9 a governor is more more likely to be able to set the terms of the debate. They can give a speech, they say, this is my initiative, this is my proposal, I won't sign it unless I agree with it.

Speaker 9 With senators, you end up

Speaker 9 having to actually

Speaker 9 vote on stuff that has no relevance whatsoever, but can be used later on to attack you.

Speaker 6 Where's the whole meme that Hillary Clinton is very experienced? She's been in the Senate a few years longer than you, and then she was the first lady.

Speaker 6 Are they counting that?

Speaker 7 Does that go on the resume?

Speaker 6 Because I'm not sure, I mean, if that's, they keep saying she's the experienced candidate and I keep wondering, man, she's been in the Senate a couple of years, but I don't think first lady counts, does it?

Speaker 11 Or does her husband's resume somehow?

Speaker 9 I think that, first of all, she's a very capable senator. She's very smart.
I think people rightly give her

Speaker 9 credit for having been a participant in the Clinton administration and that she was doing some heavy lifting on issues.

Speaker 9 But I do think that increasingly what Americans are looking for is not Washington experience, but do you have life experience that is going to lead you to make good decisions?

Speaker 9 And are you in touch with what's happening on the ground?

Speaker 6 Would you take any Democrat in the field over any Republican? Is there a Republican in the field you admire that you think would do a nice job?

Speaker 9 You know, I think some of these folks are decent people. I mean, Mike Huckabee.

Speaker 6 No, no, no. Worst backhanded compliment ever.

Speaker 12 No, no, no, no.

Speaker 9 I think there are guys like Huckabee who I think are sincere and decent. But

Speaker 9 if you look at how they were trying to outbid each other on Guantanamo,

Speaker 9 we're going to detain even more people

Speaker 9 and alienate even more folks outside our borders.

Speaker 9 That kind of stuff, I think, is not serving the Republican Party well.

Speaker 9 and is not going to serve the country well.

Speaker 6 Well, here's to staying above the fray and not having having the red-blue divide anymore. And we hope you come back and see us again soon.

Speaker 9 It is a thrill. I love this show.
Thank you very much. Appreciate it.

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Speaker 4 Ladies and gentlemen,

Speaker 6 please join me in welcoming the President of the United States, Barack Obama.

Speaker 6 have a tea with you.

Speaker 6 Thank you. Thank you.

Speaker 6 Thank you.

Speaker 6 Thank you.

Speaker 6 Thank you.

Speaker 6 Thank you.

Speaker 6 That's all the time we have.

Speaker 16 Thank you for joining us.

Speaker 9 This is a nice set.

Speaker 3 Thank you very much.

Speaker 3 It reminds me of the convention.

Speaker 15 We actually bought it.

Speaker 11 It was in a warehouse.

Speaker 6 And we bought it.

Speaker 17 We had it chiseled. Let me give you Mug Force One.

Speaker 10 This is yours. Oh, nice.

Speaker 6 There's no water in it. Let me get some water for you.

Speaker 16 Thank you.

Speaker 6 I'll get that on the thing there.

Speaker 15 Thank you so much for

Speaker 11 coming by.

Speaker 15 There you go.

Speaker 17 Does that happen to you wherever you go?

Speaker 6 Is that just a wild, when you, because when you guys go to work, do people

Speaker 6 typically applaud her? It's a nice feeling.

Speaker 10 It was a wonderful welcome.

Speaker 9 It does not happen,

Speaker 9 for example, when I go to the Republican caucus meeting.

Speaker 11 I see. Slightly differently.
Yeah.

Speaker 15 So here you are.

Speaker 6 You're two years in to your administration. And

Speaker 6 the question that arises in my mind:

Speaker 6 are we the people we were waiting for?

Speaker 11 Or

Speaker 6 does it turn out those people are still out there and

Speaker 6 we don't have their number?

Speaker 6 How are you feeling about that?

Speaker 9 Well,

Speaker 16 you know, I'm feeling great about

Speaker 15 where

Speaker 16 the American people are considering what we've gone through. I mean, we've gone through the two toughest years of any time since the Great Depression.
And in light of that,

Speaker 16 the fact that people have been resilient, that folks are still out there working and opening businesses and working in the community, looking after their families, taking care of their responsibilities, that's encouraging.

Speaker 16 So there's still a lot of good stuff happening.

Speaker 11 But people are frustrated.

Speaker 16 A lot of folks are hurting out there still.

Speaker 15 And

Speaker 16 in that environment, I think that they're hoping that we can do a little bit better here in Washington than we've been doing.

Speaker 11 Now,

Speaker 17 do you feel that as well? Because it is,

Speaker 6 you're coming from a place. You ran on very high rhetoric, hope and change.

Speaker 6 And the Democrats this year seem to be running on,

Speaker 6 please, baby, one more chance.

Speaker 18 Now,

Speaker 18 how did we go

Speaker 18 in two years from hope and change?

Speaker 17 We are the people we've been looking for to, you're not going to give them the keys, are you? You know, is it,

Speaker 17 are you disappointed in how it's gone? Are you surprised that other people, even your base, can be disappointed?

Speaker 6 Or do you reject that narrative?

Speaker 19 You know,

Speaker 11 look,

Speaker 16 when I won and we started the transition and we looked at what was happening in the economy, a whole bunch of my political folks came up and said, you know what?

Speaker 16 Enjoy this now, because two years from now, folks are going to be frustrated. And that is in fact what's happened.
When you've got 9.6%

Speaker 16 unemployment,

Speaker 16 when folks are seeing their homes underwater, when

Speaker 16 the economy is growing but is still not growing as fast as it needs to to make up for the 8 million jobs that were lost,

Speaker 16 folks are going to be frustrated. And that's going to reflect itself in the political environment.

Speaker 16 But having said that, I look over the last 18 months and I say we prevented the second Great Depression. We've stabilized the economy.
An economy that was shrinking is now growing.

Speaker 16 We've had nine months of consecutive private sector job growth.

Speaker 15 We

Speaker 14 have passed

Speaker 16 historic health care reform, historic financial regulatory reform. We have done things that some folks don't even know about.

Speaker 2 What have you done that we don't know about? Well,

Speaker 15 are you planning a surprise party for us

Speaker 20 filled with jobs and health care?

Speaker 11 No, but

Speaker 16 when you look at what we've done in terms of making sure that before we even passed health care, 4 million kids got health insurance that didn't have it before through the Children's Health Insurance Program.

Speaker 16 Expanded national service.

Speaker 16 Expanded national service more than at any time since the beginning of the Peace Corps. Made sure that credit card companies couldn't jack up your rates

Speaker 16 without notice.

Speaker 16 Over and over again, we have moved forward an agenda that is making a difference in people's lives each and every day. Now, is it enough? No.

Speaker 16 And so I expect, and I think most Democrats out there expect, that people want to see more progress.

Speaker 16 But

Speaker 16 certainly, in terms of the folks who voted for me,

Speaker 16 my expectation and hope is that if you look at the track record that we've accomplished in very difficult circumstances over the last 18 months, we have done an awful lot that we talked about during the campaign, and we're going to do more in the years to come.

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Speaker 19 Earlier this week, I sat down with President Barack Obama for a wide-ranging conversation.

Speaker 19 We talked about the challenges facing the world, his message to young activists, and workshopping slogans with Michelle. Enjoy.

Speaker 19 Are you going to filibuster me?

Speaker 11 Because I don't have all the time.

Speaker 15 You want me to to be very good at like so is this like a roundabout way of saying you just want me to give short pithy answers?

Speaker 19 No, I don't want short questions.

Speaker 15 Do you want me to speed up? Do you want me to talk faster?

Speaker 19 No, no, no, no, please, Mr. President.

Speaker 15 I will not purposely filibuster, but sometimes I will have a pause as I'm formulating my thoughts, as you well know.

Speaker 15 Michelle has been speeding up my auto,

Speaker 15 my audiobook. So, you know, I guess you can press a button so it plays like a bunch of things.

Speaker 19 Yeah, you can be like 1.25 or one and a half.

Speaker 11 Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 19 Yeah, you're a one and a half guy. You're definitely a one and a half guy.

Speaker 15 I was a little offended by that, but that's okay. That's fine.

Speaker 15 It doesn't communicate the depth of feeling with which I'm doing the reading, but it's okay.

Speaker 19 How do you like being referred to like just as a human being? Do you like Mr. President?

Speaker 15 People call me Barack, but then sometimes some folks feel awkward doing it. Obviously, that's what my friends call me.

Speaker 15 So

Speaker 15 I consider you a friend, but you may feel, you know, so...

Speaker 19 No, no, no. The people will feel like they like even Africans will...
They'll write me letters saying, how dare you?

Speaker 15 This is my fortune. So I don't want to get you in trouble.
So you can say, Mr. President.
That makes sense. You can call me POTUS.

Speaker 19 My favorite one was Obizzle. That was my favorite.

Speaker 15 Please call me that.

Speaker 19 Mr. President, welcome to the Daily Social Distancing Show.

Speaker 15 I am very happy to be here with you.

Speaker 19 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 like I would have liked 350-350. Why 700 pages?

Speaker 15 You know,

Speaker 15 I would have broken it up even more, but

Speaker 15 you know, the publishers thought that breaking it up into two volumes would be

Speaker 15 about right. And

Speaker 15 look,

Speaker 15 the goal of the book was to give people a sense of what it's like like to be in the White House

Speaker 15 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

Speaker 15 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

Speaker 15 having some pretty extraordinary experiences. And

Speaker 15 I wanted it to be an encouragement for people to say, ah, you know, the guy, yeah, he's okay, but he's not so special. And look what he ended up doing.
Maybe I can do something

Speaker 15 as well.

Speaker 19 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.

Speaker 19 I think of a fledgling Barack Obama. I'm 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.

Speaker 19 If you are writing to young people to be optimistic in the book,

Speaker 19 what are some of the frustrations that you understand on their side that may hinder that optimism? Because if a young person says, yeah, but this system right now is crumbling more and more,

Speaker 19 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 something new.

Speaker 15 Part of the reason that it's 700 pages long is because

Speaker 15 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

Speaker 15 a vivid example of the fact that our democracy is not

Speaker 15 the way we would imagine it to be.

Speaker 15 There are all kinds of elements to it where the most votes don't necessarily translate into

Speaker 15 the equivalent amount of power.

Speaker 15 Very popular proposals can wither on the vine because of a filibuster in the Senate.

Speaker 15 And so

Speaker 15 I don't try to gloss those over. You know, the Paris Accord did not solve climate change, but it created

Speaker 15 the first global framework whereby all countries agreed we have to do something about this. And here's a mechanism to do it.

Speaker 15 You can still be terrified about the pace at which we are burning up the planet and yet think

Speaker 15 that was a worthwhile endeavor because it gives us at least the opportunity, maybe

Speaker 15 three, four, five years down the road to keep building on that. So that is the kind of mentality I want young people to have.

Speaker 15 A certain impatience, a certain frustration, a certain anger about the status quo.

Speaker 15 There are times now where

Speaker 15 you have younger activists criticizing me for Obama, why didn't you take care of this or that or the other?

Speaker 15 And

Speaker 15 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

Speaker 15 some stuff won't work out exactly the way they want. But the impulse

Speaker 15 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.

Speaker 19 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.

Speaker 15 I'm constantly trying to explain to people I'm a funny guy, but I don't know.

Speaker 19 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.

Speaker 19 I've never heard a world leader describe the G20 the way you do in the book, the high school of it all.

Speaker 19 I wondered on a personal level, have you maintained connections with those world leaders as, like, like, do you send Angela Merkel memes?

Speaker 19 Do you, like, who are you still close with just as a human being?

Speaker 15 You know, I don't send Angela Merkel memes, but I talk to her sometimes. Sometimes, you know, she'll give me a call, I'll give her a call, and

Speaker 15 we'll trade notes.

Speaker 15 You know, there are a handful of folks who

Speaker 15 you've been in the foxhole with, right?

Speaker 15 You've done some good, important work.

Speaker 15 Some of them are still in power, so I don't want to mention that, you know,

Speaker 15 that I'm giving them a call, because who knows, that might get them in trouble. You mentioned somebody like an Angela Merkel.
Look,

Speaker 15 the stance she took in Europe relative to immigration.

Speaker 15 And the enormous political costs she paid for that, and yet there was something inside her that said, look, I'm not going to

Speaker 15 simply abandon

Speaker 15 a million people who are in desperate need. You know, you see that in somebody,

Speaker 15 and you say,

Speaker 15 it encourages you that

Speaker 15 for all the

Speaker 15 cruelty and venality and corruption around the world, there are a lot of good people doing good work, and some of them actually rise to significant positions of power. And

Speaker 15 in that sense, democracy can work the way it's supposed to.

Speaker 15 If

Speaker 15 we have a vigilant citizenry, and that's not always the case.

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Speaker 19 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.

Speaker 19 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.

Speaker 19 The best politicians may not necessarily be the best leaders.

Speaker 19 The best activists 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

Speaker 19 this leadership academy that's all over the globe,

Speaker 19 you're clearly trying to create mini Obamas everywhere, which is probably like a fever dream of the right. But

Speaker 19 what you're trying to do is create something specific. And And I would like to know what that is.

Speaker 19 What do you believe a leader is? Not just somebody who's in power, but a leader.

Speaker 15 The program we did in

Speaker 15 Johannesburg. We gathered up 200 young leaders from 50 countries on the continent of Africa.
And it was as varied.

Speaker 15 You had young women who had started rural health clinics.

Speaker 11 Yeah.

Speaker 15 You had

Speaker 15 MPs

Speaker 15 who had taken a more conventional political route. You had entrepreneurs.
The thing they all had in common, though, was

Speaker 11 this

Speaker 15 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.

Speaker 15 A speech I gave in Johannesburg in conjunction with that, it was for the anniversary of Mandela's 100th anniversary,

Speaker 15 where I contrasted that

Speaker 15 sort of democratic inclusive leadership to the strongman leadership that in some ways we've seen ascendant in certain parts of the world,

Speaker 15 in some ways

Speaker 15 was ascendant here in the United States.

Speaker 15 And those are two different stories of what it means to be a leader and

Speaker 15 power.

Speaker 15 And

Speaker 15 that conflict, that battle between a more democratic, inclusive vision and one that's top-down, dominant, subordinate,

Speaker 15 that's a contest that's taking place here in the United States and around the world. And

Speaker 15 it's not going to be finished just because the election's over and Donald Trump was defeated, because you see examples of this in the Philippines, in Hungary,

Speaker 15 in a variety of countries in Africa and Asia. And so that contest is going to continue.

Speaker 19 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.

Speaker 19 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.

Speaker 19 But I wonder, as somebody who has grown up in other parts of the world, as someone who has family 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?

Speaker 19 Or

Speaker 19 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?

Speaker 15 I think

Speaker 15 it is a good thing that other countries catch up and have their own capabilities and their own agency.

Speaker 15 That's not something that I think America should fear. My argument would be that

Speaker 15 even in a more multipolar world where

Speaker 15 you don't have just one big power but you have other countries who are coming into their own,

Speaker 15 the principles that America articulated at its best about rule of law, human rights,

Speaker 15 freedom of speech, democracy, those values, at least I choose to believe, are not exclusively American.

Speaker 15 You, as somebody who lived in South Africa, know

Speaker 15 the play that in other countries sometimes you hear where somebody who's doing something entirely for power

Speaker 15 and money and influence will say,

Speaker 15 if they're criticized, you say, ah,

Speaker 15 you've been just influenced by Western thinking. That's colonial thinking.
No, no, no, no.

Speaker 15 You are stealing from your people.

Speaker 15 And when we criticize, you don't claim that somehow

Speaker 15 this is some American hegemony being asserted against you. We're calling you on the fact that you're a thief.

Speaker 15 I think it's important for us to

Speaker 15 recognize that for all its failings,

Speaker 15 the values that America has often articulated on the world stage have been ones that I would still believe in and that a lot of people took comfort from.

Speaker 15 And when we are not asserting them, oftentimes they don't,

Speaker 15 you know, they don't play out on the world stage.

Speaker 19 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.

Speaker 19 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.

Speaker 19 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?

Speaker 19 Because in the world, like I'll tell you as an international person, we would oftentimes go, like, man, yes, America is great and it's doing wonderful things.

Speaker 19 But then you'd be like, but also, man, sometimes they just break the rules and no one can say anything about it.

Speaker 15 Absolutely.

Speaker 15 Well, and I record examples in the book of where I'm grappling with this, right?

Speaker 15 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

Speaker 15 you inherit a legacy, right? So

Speaker 15 if I come in as president and

Speaker 15 I can't undo the Iraq war,

Speaker 15 the decision to go into Iraq. Now I can

Speaker 15 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.

Speaker 19 Did you ever envy, though, how like Trump just came in and basically broke shit, though? Because I mean, he didn't care.

Speaker 15 No, I didn't envy it because I do care. And

Speaker 15 I do not think that is an option to simply pretend that

Speaker 15 the legacy of problems or issues that you inherit are somehow things you can just brush aside.

Speaker 15 So the answer is yes.

Speaker 15 I would struggle with the fact that any action I took, particularly when you're talking about

Speaker 15 counterterrorism.

Speaker 15 That's probably the area where

Speaker 15 I wrestled with this most because my obligation first and foremost in the United States was to to make sure that people didn't get hurt.

Speaker 15 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.

Speaker 15 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.

Speaker 15 not necessarily supported by those societies, but they're there and they are plotting and they're planning. And that wasn't made up.

Speaker 15 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.

Speaker 15 You then are wrestling with how do I

Speaker 15 protect

Speaker 15 the American people from those actors,

Speaker 15 but do it in a way that is morally and ethically justified.

Speaker 15 And war is madness.

Speaker 15 Kinetic action of any sort, military action of any sort,

Speaker 15 that results in death and destruction

Speaker 15 at a certain level is not the thing I would want humanity to do. And

Speaker 15 what happens to people is

Speaker 15 tragic.

Speaker 15 It is not something you gloss over.

Speaker 15 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

Speaker 15 how it changes them internally when they have engaged in violence, even if necessary and justified against others. So

Speaker 15 the best I could come up with was

Speaker 15 to never

Speaker 15 glorify it.

Speaker 15 to never pretend like it isn't a dilemma. And so those kinds of

Speaker 15 questions, I think, are ones that

Speaker 15 not only should American leaders have to grapple with, but I think the American people have to be aware of it. And sometimes the media does not do a very good job.
It's a very binary,

Speaker 15 you know, the Iraq War, it's glorious for the first year and a half, and then suddenly it's not.

Speaker 11 Yes.

Speaker 15 And we're shocked that

Speaker 15 us invading another country might turn out to be messy.

Speaker 15 Hopefully that's not a lesson we have to repeatedly relearn.

Speaker 19 Let's talk a little bit about, let's loosen things up.

Speaker 19 Let's unbutton

Speaker 19 one of those buttons on the shirt there.

Speaker 19 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?

Speaker 19 And I say this because you roasted Donald Trump, he ran for president. You roasted Kanye West, he ran for president.

Speaker 19 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.

Speaker 15 Well,

Speaker 15 I should roast people,

Speaker 15 people I admire more.

Speaker 15 I'll start roasting you, man.

Speaker 11 Who knows?

Speaker 15 Although you weren't born here, so

Speaker 19 you know.

Speaker 11 But look, look, I was able to get away with it, apparently.

Speaker 15 Who knows?

Speaker 19 Before I let you go, I wanted to know one last thing, and that is

Speaker 19 being president of the United States is arguably the toughest job in the world. When you transition back to personal life,

Speaker 19 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.

Speaker 19 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.

Speaker 19 And so, I wonder, as former President Barack Obama,

Speaker 19 have you transitioned into that completely or do you find different ways to try and fix the problems that you see in the world?

Speaker 15 Well, first of all, I'm not anything like you. I still have a lot more influence in the cloud.

Speaker 3 So, let's just be clear.

Speaker 15 Come on, man.

Speaker 11 I was hoping you'd be a little bit more. I'm trying to keep things in perspective.

Speaker 19 I was hoping you'd just let that one slide. I was hoping you'd just be like, yeah, you know, Trevor, in many ways.

Speaker 15 Look,

Speaker 15 the truth is that

Speaker 15 I did not have those kinds of withdrawals. And I know that there are people who I know who've had them when they leave public life

Speaker 15 and very visibly, you know,

Speaker 15 they want to get back on stage. Yeah.
Michelle and I, that's something we share.

Speaker 15 We feel good about the work we did. We don't feel anxiety about not being the center of attention.

Speaker 15 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 find new ways

Speaker 15 to

Speaker 15 have that same impact, understanding that we'll never have the exact same impact as you have in your local office. But a lot of the work around the foundation is,

Speaker 15 you said create a lot of Obamas. I'm not sure that's the goal.
But

Speaker 15 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,

Speaker 15 that's a legacy that may exceed anything that we did

Speaker 15 while we were

Speaker 15 in our formal positions.

Speaker 15 And that feels pretty good.

Speaker 19 Well, I could talk to you for hours, but luckily I have a 700-page book to answer the rest of my questions.

Speaker 19 Thank you for joining me. Thank you for taking the time.

Speaker 19 And yeah, thank you for being you. Hey, Mr.
President, a.k.a. O'Bizzle.
Thank you for joining me on the Daily Social Space. I enjoyed it, man.

Speaker 15 We'll do it again. Volume two.

Speaker 20 Explore more shows from the Daily Show podcast universe by searching The Daily Show, wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 20 Watch the Daily Show weeknights at 11, 10 Central on Comedy Central, and stream full episodes anytime on Fairmount Plus.

Speaker 5 This has been a Comedy Central podcast.

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