TDS Time Machine | Interviews with Obama

I was deep in it, gaming on Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7.

Unfolding the screen made it twice as big and so immersive I kinda lost myself.

Might have trolled a little too close to the sun.

Someone in the chat told me to touch grass, so I took my Z Fold 7 outside and kept playing.

Still won, got a tan, and a nice little reset.

Powerful processor, realistic graphics, you stay locked in, streak stays alive.

Can your phone do that?

The new Galaxy Z Fold 7.

Get yours at Samsung.com.

Gatorade is the number one proven electrolyte blend designed to hydrate better than water

so you can lose more sweat

and raise your game.

Gatorade, is it in you?

My cat Freddy loves to be brushed and cuddled,

but stirring up his cat allergens meant sneezing and itchy eyes.

Then, I found Purina one live clear.

It's cat food that reduced the major allergen and my suffering in as little as 21 days.

Now we feel closer than ever.

If you have issues with cat allergens, you really need to try Purina One Live Clear.

Try new Purina One Live Clear today.

Purina One, a difference from day one.

You're listening to Comedy Central.

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.

Joining us via satellite from Washington, D.C., please welcome Senator Barack Obama to the program.

Senator, thanks for joining us.

How are you, sir?

Hey, John.

All right, kids.

Settle down.

How are you, sir?

I am doing great.

How are you?

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?

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

It turned out that it was a health insurance bill.

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.

Senator.

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

That is normally how we organize ourselves around here i i don't know if you can tell by the results

sometimes

let me ask you a question

or is that a thing they do only to freshman senators is there is there a hazing process do you have to carry the gavels in and out is there anything that goes on they make me sharpen pencils and sometimes i have to stand between harry reed and bill frist

that can be a difficult job speaking of which the democrats have suddenly,

in the past, let's say, week,

seemed 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?

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

No doubt about it.

Frisky in terms of...

Politically speaking.

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

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

which is which

look that there is no doubt that uh george bush has had a tough couple of weeks uh we don't we we don't you know underestimate uh their political skills i think what we do is question our uh question their governing skills.

And some of the issues that we've been talking about on Iraq, on healthcare, on public infrastructure, we've been talking about for a while.

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.

See, I don't have a television, so

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

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?

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

We would help working families.

Is there something more specific

that you have in mind?

If Barack Obama was in charge of the Iraq policy, what would we be doing right now?

Well,

Iraq is sort of a situation where you've got a guy who drove the bus into the ditch.

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.

So

seriously, this is a huge problem.

I was opposed to the war even before I was in the Senate.

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 the the date for the next parliamentary elections.

That has to be a benchmark where we say to ourselves,

we're not going to have a military solution to this.

We can't replace

the Revolutionary Guard of Saddam Hussein in holding this country together.

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.

Let me ask you a question, Senator.

Who's the worst senator?

And you're my, like, let's say you're looking around, and

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

That guy's terrible.

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

Nothing?

You know, they're all

have their qualities.

I think

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

how did you get here exactly?

But

mostly you feel like you can work with these guys.

You know, the truth is that

part of the criteria for getting elected is that you've got to have some likable quality.

You've been vetted.

Of some sort.

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

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.

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

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 I think things will work out pretty well.

It is true I worry about the hype.

The only person more overhyped than me is you.

Well done, sir.

Well done.

Dream of father.

all That's about the best answer I think I've ever heard.

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.

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.

Oh, thank you.

I thought you were going to say

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

His book is Dreams for My Father.

It's on the bookshelves now.

Senator, thanks for joining us.

Senator Barack Obama.

My guest tonight, a Democratic senator from Illinois.

He is also running for president.

Please welcome back to the show Senator Barack Obama.

Senator.

You rock, barack.

Senator, thanks for joining us.

John, it is good to be here.

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

You do have,

there is a certain inspirational quality to you.

My question is,

is that really something America is going to go for?

Well, we're going to find out.

We're going to find out.

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

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

we're especially seeing a lot of young people.

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 taken this seriously.

And coming out to see it.

And do you have, if I may, kegs?

Because

that also can draw them.

We don't like to divulge our secrets.

I think that's wise.

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.

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.

She felt like you got to be able to take care of your own house to really feel like you can take care of the White House.

I turned on Drudge.

It said,

Obama's wife slams Hillary.

You mentioned something about going after Al-Qaeda in Pakistan.

This says, Obama stumbles and bumbles on the Al-Qaeda question.

Bam bombs himself in new gaff.

This is my favorite.

Angry Obama the pothead is not how we remember him.

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

You know,

every day

it reveals itself in new ways.

And, you know, I think that's part of what

People are looking to our campaign to see is just some normalcy and some common sense.

I was mentioning that we were preparing for the debate.

We had an 8 o'clock in the morning debate in Iowa.

This was like the 27th of the debate.

The real.

And

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

Yes.

So we're preparing and one of my staff said,

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

And I think that really strikes

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

it's not true.

People know it's not true.

All the insiders understand

that

we're just game playing.

And in the meantime, you've got these hugely serious problems, which are true.

Do you feel like you're stuck in a narrative now?

And the narrative is

Hillary Clinton is unlikable but knows what she's doing.

Obama is inexperienced but brings change.

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

That's what's happening right now.

They will probably find something new later to talk about.

Can you tell us what that will be?

We don't know yet.

Whatever sells papers.

Whatever sells papers.

Whatever sells papers.

Does your campaign, do you find yourself falling into promoting those narratives as well?

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

And

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

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

And so

what we try to do, what we try to do is break down these narratives and get to the heart of the question.

So when people talk about experience, what they really want to know is: does he have good judgment?

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

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.

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

what's been interesting, for example, on

not using nuclear weapons to bomb an al-Qaeda camp, for example.

Initially everybody said, oh, that's a gaffe.

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

And

some of the press scratch their head and say, hmm.

And you notice that.

It turns it around.

It turns it around.

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

It's the same way that we got into Iraq: nobody is willing to ask tough questions,

and there's a lot of people who challenge conventional wisdom.

And challenge conventional wisdom.

That's what we've got to do.

Well, that's what's great about it: 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.

And that's been the best part about it.

We'll take a commercial break.

We'll be right back with Senator Barack Obama.

Runabouts!

We're here with Senator Barack Obama.

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

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

As you know, trying to get some popularity.

Grenada?

Grenada or...

Well, that's a gaffe.

I don't know how that's going to show up in the headlines tomorrow.

That's a big one.

Now, listen,

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.

That's right.

Why would that doesn't seem good?

And I'll tell you why.

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

What is he talking about?

Well, you know, you don't use folks.

in that way.

Look, I think having Oprah support is wonderful.

I think having

celebrities want to do stuff for you.

But the truth is, in Iowa, in New Hampshire, 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.

Are you telling the truth?

And

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

And Iowa can be one on the ground.

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

people,

they're impressed with that.

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's divided, there's nothing we can do about it.

You know, we just got to battle it out.

Can a senator do it?

You know, 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

paralyzed and nuanced.

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

And

a governor is 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.

You know, with senators, you end up having to actually

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

Where is 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.

Are they counting that?

Does that go on the resume?

Because I'm not sure.

I mean, if that's, they keep saying she's the experienced candidate, and I keep wondering, I mean, she's been in the Senate a couple of years, but I don't think First Lady counts, does it?

Or does her husband's resume somehow count?

I think that, first of all, she's a very capable senator.

She's very smart.

I think people rightly give her

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

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?

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

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?

You know, I think some of these folks are decent people.

I mean Mike Huckabee.

No, no, no.

Worst backhanded compliment ever.

No, no, no, no.

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

But

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

We're going to detain even more people

and alienate even more folks outside our borders.

That kind of stuff I think is not serving the Republican Party well and is not going to serve the country well.

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

It is a thrill.

I love this show.

Thank you very much.

Appreciate it.

This summer, try the new Strado Frappuccino blended beverage at Starbucks.

It's the classic blended iced coffee you know and love, now topped with a creamy layer of handcrafted brown sugar cold foam.

Available for a limited time.

Your Stroud of Frappuccino is ready at Starbucks.

Ladies and gentlemen,

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

Thank you,

thank you,

thank you

thank you

that that that's all the time we have

Thank you for thank you for joining us.

This is a this is a nice set.

Thank you very much.

Yeah, it reminds me of the convention

We actually

bought it.

It was in a warehouse.

And we bought it.

We had a chiseled.

Let me give you Mug Force One.

This is yours.

Oh nice.

There's no water in it.

Let me get some water for you.

Thank you.

I'll get that on the thing there.

Thank you so much for

coming by.

There you go.

All right.

Does that happen anywhere you go?

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

typically applaud or it's a nice feeling.

It was a wonderful welcome.

It does not happen,

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

I see.

Slightly differently.

Yeah.

So here you are.

You're two years in to your administration.

And

the question that arises in my mind:

are we the people we were waiting for?

Or

does it turn out those people are still out there and

we don't have their number?

How are you feeling about that?

Well,

you know, I'm feeling great about

where 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,

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.

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

But people are frustrated.

A lot of folks are hurting out there still.

And

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.

Now,

do you feel that as well?

Because it is, you know, you're coming from a place.

You ran on very high rhetoric, hope and change, and the Democrats this year seem to be running on,

please, baby, one more chance.

Now,

how did we go

in two years

from hope and change?

We are the people we've been looking for to, you're not going to give that the keys, are you?

You know, is it,

are you disappointed in how it's gone?

Are you surprised that other people, even your base, can be disappointed?

Or do you reject that narrative?

You know,

look,

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,

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%

unemployment,

when folks are seeing their homes underwater, when

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,

folks are going to be frustrated.

And that's going to reflect itself in the political environment.

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.

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

We have passed historic health care reform, historic financial regulatory reform.

We have done things that some folks don't even know about.

What have you done that we don't know about?

Well,

are you planning a surprise party for us

filled with jobs and health care?

No, but

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.

Expanded national service

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

without notice.

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.

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

But

certainly in terms of the folks who voted for me,

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 an awful lot that we talked about during the campaign and we're going to do more in the years to come's knows that no matter your paint project saving is at the top of your list that's why when you shop today you can buy one get one free select valspar and hgtv home by sherwin williams one coat coverage interior paints via rebate shop these deals in store or online today at lowe's we help you save selection varies by location while supplies last discount taking the time of purchase.

See Sales Associate for details.

Offer valid 821 through 93.

This message is sponsored by Greenlight.

With school out, summer is the perfect time to teach our kids real-world money skills they'll use forever.

Greenlight is a debit card and the number one family finance and safety app used by millions of families, helping kids learn how to save, invest, and spend wisely.

Parents can send their kids money and track their spending and saving.

while kids build money confidence and skills in fun ways.

Start your risk-free green light trial today at greenlight.com slash Spotify.

That's greenlight.com slash Spotify.

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

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

Enjoy.

Are you going to filibuster me?

Because I don't have all the time.

You want me to be very good at like...

So is this like a roundabout way of saying you just want me to give short, pithy answers?

No, I don't want short questions.

You want me to speed up?

You want me to talk faster?

No, no, no, no, please, Mr.

President.

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

Michelle has been speeding up my auto,

my audiobook.

So, you know, I guess you can press a button so it plays like a bunch of people.

Yeah, you can be like 1.25 or 1.5, yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, you were a one and a half guy.

You're definitely a one and a half guy.

I was a little offended by that, but that's okay.

That's fine.

It does it doesn't communicate the depth of feeling with which I'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 will feel like, like even africans will they'll write me letters saying how dare you 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 my favorite one was obizzle that was my favorite please call me that

mr president welcome 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 like I would have liked 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 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 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, 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 people to be optimistic in the book,

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,

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.

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 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, 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 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

you know 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.

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 heard of a world leader describe the G20 the way you do in the book, the high school of it all.

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

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

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

we'll trade 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 who knows, that might get them in trouble.

You mentioned somebody like Anangela Merkel.

Look,

the stance she took in Europe relative to immigration

and the enormous political costs 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 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 some of them actually rise to significant positions of power.

And

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

if

you know we have a vigilant citizenry and and that's not always the case.

Hey it's Ryan Reynolds here for Mint Mobile.

Now I was looking for fun ways to tell you that Mint's offer of unlimited premium wireless for $15 a month is back.

So I thought it would be fun if we made $15 bills.

But it turns out that's very illegal.

So there goes my big idea for the commercial.

Give it a try at mintmobile.com/slash switch.

A prompt payment of $45 for a three-month plan equivalent to $15 per month required.

New customer offer for first three months only.

Speed slow after 35 gigabytes of network's busy.

Taxes and fees extra.

See Mintmobile.com.

This episode is sponsored by Friskies, who would like to tell your cats hi.

Now, if that didn't get your cats' attention, there's one thing that always does the trick.

Just pour some Friskies, crunchy food in the bowl, and you'll hear those paws come running.

Works every time.

With so many Friskies' choices, you can always bring your cats running from their secret napping spots.

There's always more to explore.

See for yourself at friskies.com or visit your local store.

Today's top story.

The flavor merger of the century between the peanut butter group and Chocolatey Corp.

Joining me is a PBC executive.

Thanks for having me, Barry.

Now, how did you know the merger and the byproduct of it, Jif Peanut Butter and Chocolate Flavored Spread, would be a success?

You know, it was a gut feeling.

A rumbling, if you will.

Besides, they're two titans of taste.

Very true.

Goes great with pretzels.

And pancakes.

Apples, too, I bet.

Try Jeff PBC today.

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 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

this leadership academy that's all over the globe,

you're clearly trying to create mini 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.

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

was ascendant here in the United States.

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

power.

And

that conflict, that battle between a more democratic, inclusive vision and one that's top-down, dominant, 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 election's 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 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, 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?

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 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.

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, you say, ah, you know, 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 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

recognize that for all its failings,

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.

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

you know, 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 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 go, Man, yes, America is great and it's doing wonderful things.

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

Absolutely.

Well, 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 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 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 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 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 they're 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

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 relearn.

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

Let's unbutton

one of those buttons on the shirt there.

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

Who knows?

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 like 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 T V 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 than cloud.

So let's just be clear.

Come on, man.

I was hoping you just.

I was trying to keep things in perspective.

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.

Look,

the truth is that

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

and very visibly, you know,

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 find new ways

to

have that same impact, understanding that we'll never have the exact same impact as you have in the local office.

But a lot of the work around the foundation is

you said create a lot of Obamas.

I'm not sure that's the goal.

But

if 10 years, 20 years down the road there are a thousand ten thousand a hundred thousand young people who are now moving into positions of authority and power and in some ways uh have been shaped by our example in a positive way yeah that that uh

that's a legacy that may exceed anything that we did uh you know while we were in in uh in in our formal positions and and uh 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.

Hey, Mr.

President, aka O'Bizzle.

Thank you for joining me on the Daily Social Space.

I enjoyed it, man.

We'll do it again.

Volume two.

Explore more shows from the Daily Show Podcast Universe by searching The Daily Show, wherever you get your podcasts.

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

This has been a Comedy Central podcast.

Coach, the energy out there felt different.

What changed for the team today?

It was the new game day scratchers from the California Lottery.

Play is everything.

Those games sent the team's energy through the roof.

Are you saying it was the off-field play that made the difference on the field?

Hey, a little play makes your day, and today it made the game.

That's all for now.

Coach, one more question.

Play the new Los Angeles Chargers, San Francisco 49ers, and Los Angeles Rams Scratchers from the California Lottery.

A little play can make your day.

Please play responsibly.

Must be 18 years or older to purchase, play, or claim.

Thumbtack presents.

Uncertainty strikes.

I was surrounded.

The aisle and the options were closing in.

There were paint rollers, satin and matte finish, angle brushes, and natural bristles.

There were too many choices.

What if I never got my living room painted?

What if I couldn't figure out what type of paint to use?

What if...

I just used thumbtack.

I can hire a top-rated pro in the Bay Area that knows everything about interior paint, easily compare prices, and read reviews.

Thumbtack knows homes.

Download the app today.