bars</tle><g id="el_oZ84Hna1GC_65hRV2Qwn" class="css-1fxvzwo" data-animator-group="te" data-animator-type="0"><g id="el_oZ84Hna1GC_ILVvi2tqx" class="css-1wnday1" ata-animator-group="te" data-animator-type="2"><g id="el_oZ84Hna1GC"><rect x="34" width="6" height="36" id="el_qw_T_tngXw"></rect></g></g></g><g id="el_mYVjkduhMU_p_9Pm85Ac" class="css-fwki7z" data-animator-group="te" data-animator-type="0"><g id="el_mYVjkduhMU_WxG3R40yd" class="css-t3i5e6" data-animator-group="te" data-animator-type="2"><g id="el_mYVjkduhMU"><rect x="22.67" width="6" height="36" id="el_lf9GrROk6j"></rect></g></g></g><g id="el_o-EuxhgoAw_kYNRGDfcw" class="css-t9te0w" data-animator-group="te" data-animator-type="0"><g id="el_o-EuxhgoAw_3c3bzSjOJ" class="css-1r5375t" ata-animator-group="te" data-animator-type="2"><g id="el_o-EuxhgoAw"><rect x="11.33" width="6" height="36" id="el_-iueO8klO0"></rect></g></g></g><g id="el_F7mSMPhqpC_y_fKcpSxn" class="css-qknaag" data-animator-group="te" data-animator-type="0"><g id="el_F7mSMPhqpC_R6bNB6_Ys" class="css-1vd04" ata-animator-group="te" data-animator-type="2"><g id="el_F7mSMPhqpC"><rect width="6" height="36" id="el_dS5TKNZZ5w"></rect></g></g></g></svg></div><div><div class="css-1t7yl1y">0:00<!-- -->/<!-- -->1:00:58</div><div class="css-og85jy">-<!-- -->1:00:58</div></div></div></div></hear><div class="css-uzyn7p"><div class="css-1vxyw"><p class="css-1nng8z9">transcript</p><h2 class="css-9wqu2x">Obama Explas How Ameri Went From ‘Y We Can’ to ‘MAGA’</h2><h4 class="css-qsd3hm">The former print also discs Joe Bin, aliens and three of his favore books.</h4><time dateTime="2021-06-01T09:00:13.000Z" class="css-1e605">2021-06-01T05:00:13-04:00</time></div><dl class="css-p98d0w"><dt class="css-xx7kwh"></dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">[MUSIC PLAYING]</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">I’m Ezra Kle, and this is “The Ezra Kle Show.”</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">[MUSIC PLAYING]</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">So preparatn for this episo, I have spent the last few weeks very ep the md of Barack Obama. I read the first volume of his printial memoirs, “A Promised Land.” But I’ve also been listeng to his podst and other terviews he’s given, and readg terviews he’s given.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">And spendg a lot of time there, there were a few thgs I noticed that really beme the re of this nversatn and that I’ve actually jt been stgglg wh myself sce. The first is Obama’s many mdns. It’s almost pathologil how much he tri, his memoirs, to grant the pots of his crics and even the really unfair pots of some of his attackers, how much he doubts his own motivatns and righteons.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">There are tim when almost feels self-laceratg, like when you want to take him asi and say, look, you won the princy. You passed the Affordable Care Act. You don’t need to keep wonrg if you should have gotten to polics at all.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">But that personal tenncy — or maybe ’s almost better scribed as a personal disciple, I me to thk really ntribut to somethg ep what ma his princy possible. Barack Hse Obama unrstood, his bon at that time, that the odds were not good that majory whe electorat the age of the War on Terror were gog to vote for him. And he didn’t approach that fact rentfully, as a flaw that other people need to fix their polics. He saw fortg their fears as his work to do, the work of his polics.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">He saw, also, avoidg the issu, and sometim even the tths that would awaken their spicns, as jt part of the job. And so you n see the book that he’s not jt tryg to nvce them to vote for him as he is. He’s also tryg to turn himself, through what he says, and then very importantly, what he don’t say to the kd of ndidate and even person they want to vote for.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">That’s an important difference. It’s subtle a way, but ’s important. And ’s a whole style of polics that I thk is really ntted now.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">Anyway, so as you n hear this nversatn, for him, me wh a st, both psychic and eventually, some ways, polil. That is the paradox of his book, and of his reer, and to me his princy. He puts everythg to this project of persuasn, of tryg to nvce Ameri to do somethg has never done before. And he so profoundly succeeds and fails.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">His w, simultaneoly prov this polics he believ is possible, which was not obv then. And at the same time, his w and his princy beg rhapg the Republin Party to a much more direct anthis of that polics. It turns to somethg that more powerfully threatens his visn of Ameri.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">Obama is this triumph of polil persuasn and promise. And then he also leav behd, certaly a ls persuadable Republin Party and a more actured and polarized polil system. And I’m not sayg that’s his flt. But is part of the whole thg, this really, I thk, difficult way that is shapg our polics now. That, to me, is a qutn his reer and his book sets up.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">I thk a lot of people have more or ls given up on the kds of polics Obama pursued. On the right, of urse, that’s te wh Donald Tmp and everythg that he has ma the Republin Party to. But on the left, a different way, I do thk there’s a move towards a polics more of nontatn, of forcg people to face hard tths and sayg that, if you don’t see where history is gog, and you will not adm where our history has been, then you are the problem, that ’s our job to beat you not acmodate you.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">And so when I sat wh Obama this week, I wanted to see how he reflected on both the succs and the failur of his approach to polics, how he held the ntradictns of his own reer together, and where he thought Democrats had somethg to learn om what he did right, and then also, om what he did wrong. And so that’s where we began. As always, my email is Here is Print Barack Obama.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">[MUSIC PLAYING]</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">So somethg I noticed aga and aga the book is this very particular approach to persuasn that you have. I thk the normal way most of thk about you’re wng an argument wh someone. And you seem to approach wh this first step of makg yourself a person the other person will feel able to listen to, which means sympathizg wh their argument, sandg off some of the edg of your own. Tell me a b about how you thk about that.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">barack obama</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">No, that’s tertg. I fet whether was Clarence Darrow, or Abraham Lln, or some apocryphal figure the past who said, look, the bt way to w an argument is to first be able to make the other person’s argument better than they n. And for me, what that meant was that I had to unrstand their world view. And I uldn’t expect them to unrstand me if I wasn’t extendg myself to unrstand theirs.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">Now, why that is the way I thk about thgs generally partly is temperament. Partly ’s bgraphil. As I’ve wrten not jt this recent book but past books, if you’re a kid whose parents are om Kansas and Kenya, and you’re born Hawaii, and you live Indonia, you are naturally havg to figure out, well, how did all the piec f together? How do all the perspectiv, cultur, bld spots, bias, how do you rencile them to approximate somethg te?</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">And I thk that rri over to my adulthood, and to my polics, and how I approach the world generally. It prum that none of have a monopoly on tth. It adms doubt, terms of our own perspectiv.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">But if you practice long enough, at least for me, actually allows you then to maybe not always persua others but at least have some solid ground that you n stand on, that you n wh nfince say, you know what? I know what I thk, and I know what I believe. It actually giv me more nvictn rather than ls if I listen to somebody else’s argument.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">One of the thgs that strik me about , though, is that you see the book sometim means not llg out arguments that I thk you thk are really wrong, the same way that you might normally. So a sectn about the Tea Party, you mull over whether the reactn they had to you was racist. And clear you thk , at least partly, was. And then you say quote, “whatever my stcts might tell me, whatever tth the history books might suggt, I knew I wasn’t gog to w over any voters by labelg my opponents racist.” How do you ci when the st of that kd of tth outweighs the value of ?</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">barack obama</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Well, now you’re scribg somethg a ltle b different, which is, how do you move large segments of the populatn polilly towards an oute you want, whether ’s universal health re, or let’s do somethg about climate change? Vers how I might persua somebody one on one, right? The premise of persuadg somebody who you n build some tst wh, and have a history wh and relatnship, then there might be tim where you say, you know what? You’re jt full of . And let me tell you why.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">And you n be very logil and cisive about how you want to dismantle their arguments. Although I should add, by the way, do not try that at home. Bee that’s not a recipe for wng arguments wh Michelle.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">But look, when you’re alg at the macro level, when you’re alg wh 300 ln people wh enormo regnal, and racial, and relig, and cultural differenc, then now you are havg to make some lculatns. So let’s take the example you ed. And I wre extensively about the emergence of the Tea Party. And we uld see that happeng wh Sarah Pal. She was sort of a prototype for the polics that led to the Tea Party, that turn, ultimately led to Donald Tmp, and that we’re still seeg today.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">There were tim where llg out would have given me great satisfactn personally. But wouldn’t have necsarily won the polil day terms of me gettg a bill passed. And I thk every print has to al wh this.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">It may have been more noticeable wh me, part bee, as the first Ain Amerin print, there was a prumptn, not rrect, that there were tim where I was bg my tongue. That’s why the sk that “Key and Peele” did wh the anger translator, Luther, was funny. Bee people assumed, you know Barack’s thkg somethg other than what he’s sayg certa circumstanc.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">I thk that, a lot of tim, one of the ways I would measure would be: is more important for me to tell a basic historil tth, let’s say, about racism Ameri right now? Or is more important for me to get a bill passed that provis a lot of people wh health re that didn’t have before? And there’s a psychic st to not always jt tellg the tth, as I thk I scribe the book, g your prophetic voice as opposed to your aln buildg polil voice. And I thk there were tim where supporters of me would get trated if I wasn’t beg as forthright about certa thgs as I might otherwise be.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">And then there are also jt stutnal nstrats that I thk every print has to follow on some of the issu. And was sort of on a se by se basis, where you try to make cisns. Sometim, you’d get sufficiently disappoted. Let’s say for example, wh gun safety issu after Newtown, for example, and Congrs’s plete unwillgns to do anythg about the slghter of children.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">There were tim, where I would jt go off. Bee I felt that eply about how wronghead we were a basic fundamental way. But that was, let’s face , after I had exhsted every other possibily of tryg to get Congrs to move on those issu.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">I set up that kd of persuasn and pluralism tensn, bee somethg that really stck me about the book is how much liv paradox, how much ’s fortable wh the ia, that you’re fortable wh the ia that somethg and s oppose are te at the same time. And I thk of a polics of persuasn as beg the central paradox of your princy. So you acplished this massive act of persuasn, wng the princy twice, as a Black man wh the middle name Hse. And now that, retrospect, ’s like, oh yeah, of urse, Barack Obama was print.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">barack obama</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Yeah, no. I thk ’s fair to say that wasn’t a given.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">It wasn’t as obv at the time.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">barack obama</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Yeah.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">But at the same time, your princy ma the Republin Party ls persuadable. It opened the door, certa ways, to Donald Tmp. And further closed the door on the kd of pluralistic polics that you try to practice. And I’m cur how you hold both of those out together.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">barack obama</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Look, that’s been the history of Ameri. Right? There is aboln and the Civil War. And then there’s backlash and the rise of the KKK. And the Renstctn ends, and Jim Crow aris.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">And then you have a civil rights movement, a morn civil rights movement and segregatn. And that, turn, leads to phback and, ultimately, Nixon’s Southern strategy. And what I take fort om is that the tradnal two steps forward, one step back, as long as you’re gettg the two steps, then the one step back is the price of dog bs.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">In my se, let’s say, I get elected. We have a spurt of activy that gets thgs done. Even after we lose Congrs, durg the urse of those eight years, we manage the ernment, rtore some sense of that n work on behalf of people.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">We rega credibily ternatnally, but you’re right. It unleash and helps to precipate a shift the Republin Party that was already there but probably accelerat . And we’re still playg out how this works to this day.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">On the other hand, durg that perd, you’ve got an entire generatn that’s growg up and takg for granted, as you jt scribed, that you’ve got a Black fay the Whe Hoe, takg for granted that that admistratn n be petent, and have tegry, and not be wrought wh sndal. And serv as a marker. It’s planted a flag om which then the next generatn builds.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">And by the way, the next generatn n then look back and say, yeah, we do take that for granted. We n do a lot better than that and go even further. And that is, I wouldn’t say, an evable progrsn.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">Sometim, the backlash n last a very long time, and you n take three steps back after two steps forward. But do seem to be the nature of thgs that any signifint movement of social progrs, particularly those aspects of social progrs that relate to inty, race, genr, all the stuff that is not jt dollars and cents and transactnal. That, variably, will release some energy on the other si by folks who feel threatened by change.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">But one lson I’ve seen a lot of folks on the left take, I thk particularly the aftermath the Tmp years, is that there’s jt some re of this you n’t do through persuasn, that you n’t do through pluralism. And I thk some of the rise of shamg and social prsure, what I thk people ll ncel culture, ends up partly as a reactn to this. But also, jt some of the move towards a polics of, I would say, more nontatn, that there’s not a virtue lettg some thgs lie unsaid, to both the aln. That you really do have to nont the untry.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">You really do have to nont others wh the uglit piec of . So that light n e , and n heal. And I’m cur if you thk they have a pot, or that’s the wrong lson to take.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">barack obama</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">No. I don’t thk ’s — well, let’s take, sce we’re on the topic of race, what we saw after Gee Floyd’s murr was a eful b of tth tellg that young people led. And I thk, opened people’s ey to a renewed way of thkg about how plete the procs of reckong has been this untry when to race.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">But even after, I thk, a shift perspective around Gee Floyd, we’re still back to the trench of how do we get different district attorneys elected? And how do we actually reform police partments? And now, we’re back the world of polics. And as soon as we get back to the world of polics, ’s a numbers game. And you have to persua, and you have to create alns.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">So I don’t thk ’s an eher/or proposn. I thk there are tim, where there’s what we might scribe as a teachable moment. And Gee Floyd’s tragic ath was an example of that, very stark terms.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">In some ways on the enomic ont, part of what happens as a rult of the panmic is there’s a teachable moment about hey, maybe this whole fic hawk thg of the feral ernment jt beg nervo about our bt 30 years om now, while lns of people are sufferg, maybe that’s not a smart way to thk about our enomics. Aga, a teachable moment. So there are tim where, when that’s prented, I thk you try to drive home as much as possible and get a reorientatn of the body polic.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">But at some pot, this untry, our mocracy, you still have to bble together majori to get thgs done. And that is particularly te at the feral level, where although renciliatn has now prented a narrow wdow to do some pretty big thgs, the filibter apparently, if do not get reformed, still means that maybe 30 percent of the populatn potentially ntrols the majory of Senate seats. So if you say that that 30 percent of the untry is irrencilably wrong, then ’s gog to be hard to ern.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">There’s a pretty fundamental asymmetry that brgs out. So I thk, at the printial level, you have about a three and a half pot advantage for Republins the electoral llege. At the Senate level, ’s now about five pots, and the Hoe level, ’s about two pots.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">So you have this real difference now between the parti, where Democrats need to w right of center voters to w natnal power. But Republins do not need to w left of center voters to w natnal power. And that’s really changed the strategic picture for both of them.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">barack obama</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">It’s enormo. And this is part of what I wre about the book. It’s one of those thgs that’s the background of folks Washgton and people who follow polics closely. But the average Amerin, unrstandably, isn’t spendg a lot of time thkg about Senate l, and gerrymanrg, and you know —</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">How dare you?</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">[LAUGHTER]</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">barack obama</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">I’m sorry, Ezra, but you’re on the nerd si of the spectm on this stuff, as am I. So people don’t unrstand, well, if the Democrats w the princy, or if they’re ntrol of the Senate, why aren’t all the thgs that they promised happeng? Or why are they trimmg their sails on sgle payer plan health re plans, or what have you?</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">And the answer is, well, the game is tilted a way that partly aris out of very tentnal sire for Southern stat, for example, to mata power and rce the power of the feral ernment. Some of has to do wh mographic patterns and where populatn’s distributed that ’s not surprisg that the progrsive party, the Democratic party, is more of an urban party. Bee, by necsy, you got more different kds of people, immigrants floodg urban areas and settlg, and havg a different perspective than folks who are more ral, more homogeneo areas. And once you get Wyomg havg the same number of senators as California, you’ve got a problem. That do mean Democratic polics is gog to be different than Republin polics.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">Now, look, the good news is I also thk that has ma the Democratic Party more empathetic, more thoughtful, wiser. By necsy we have to thk about a broar array of terts and people. And that’s my visn for how Ameri ultimately works bt and perfects s unn.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">We don’t have the luxury of jt nsigng a group of people to say, you’re not real Amerins. We n’t do that. But do make our job harr, when to jt tryg to get a bill passed or tryg to w an electn.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">One of the ways this has reoriented, even jt sce your princy, is around tn. So for reasons that are plited to expla here, when tnal polarizatn be bigger, the Democratic disadvantage the electoral llege gets a lot worse.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">barack obama</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Right.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">But you did somethg unual 2008 and 2012. And you bucked a kd of ternatnal trend here, and tnal polarizatn went down. In 2012, you won non-llege wh makg ls than $27,000 a year.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">But Donald Tmp then ws them by more than 20 pots 2016. He keeps them 2020. So what advice do you have to Democrats to brg tnal polarizatn back down?</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">barack obama</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">I actually thk Joe Bin’s got good stcts on this. And the current admistratn’s pursug polici that speak to the ncerns and terts of folks who, if you’re 45 and workg a blue llar job, and somebody is lecturg you about beg a puter programmer, that feels abstract. That feels like somethg got sp out of some thk tank, as opposed to how my real life is lived.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">And I thk, when you start talkg about mimum wag, and when you start talkg about unn power, you are not soft pedalg social issu. I mean, the tertg thg is people knew I was left on issu like race, or genr equaly, and LGBTQ issu, and so forth. But I thk, maybe the reason I was succsful mpaigng downstate Illois, or Iowa, or plac like that is they never felt as if I was nmng them for not havg gotten to the polilly rrect answer quick enough. Or that somehow they were morally spect, bee they had grown up wh and believed more tradnal valu.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">And I thk Joe has that same pacy, partly bee of his bgraphy and where he om. The challenge I have, and I know you’ve wrten about this, is when I started nng 2007, 2008, was still possible for me to go to a small town, a disproportnately whe nservative town ral Ameri, and get a fair hearg. Bee people jt they hadn’t heard of me.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">Now, they might say, what kd of name is that? And they might look at me and have a set of assumptns. But the filter jt wasn’t that thick. Bee rather than gettg all their news om Fox News or Rh Limbgh, they were — the way I’d scribe , the prototypil that I show up a small town Southern Illois, which is closer to the South than is to Chigo, both culturally as well as geographilly. And ually, the lol paper was owned by a mostly nservative, maybe even que nservative ually guy.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">He’d ll me . We’d have a cup of ffee. We’d have a nversatn about tax policy, or tra, or whatever else he red about. Or he might have a small edorial board of two or three wrers.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">And at the end of , ually, I uld expect some sort of story the paper sayg, well, we met wh Obama. He seems like an telligent young man. We don’t agree wh him on much. He’s kd of liberal for our taste but had some tertg ias, and that was .</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">And so then I uld go to the fish y, or the VFW hall, or all the other venu and jt talk to people and have a nversatn. And they didn’t have any prenceptns about what I believe. They uld jt take me at face value. If I went to those same plac now, or if any Democrat who’s mpaigng go those plac now, almost all news is om eher Fox News, Sclair’s news statns, talk rad, or some Facebook page. And tryg to perate that is really difficult.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">And ’s not that the people the muni have changed. It’s that if that’s what you are beg fed day day out, then you’re gog to e to every nversatn wh a certa set of predisposns that are really hard to break through. And that is one of the biggt challeng I thk we face. Bee at the end of the day, I actually have found that, and this still sounds naive, I thk a lot of people would still qutn this. But I’ve seen .</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">Most folks actually are persuadable the sense of they kd of want the same thgs. They want a good job. They want to be able to support a fay. They want safe neighborhoods.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">And even on historilly difficult issu like race, people aren’t gog around thkg, man, how n we do terrible thgs to people who don’t look like ? That’s not people’s perspective. What they are ncerned about is not beg taken advantage of, or is their way of life and tradns slippg away om them? Or is their stat beg unrmed by chang society?</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">And if you have a nversatn wh folks, you n ually assuage those fears. But they have to be able to hear you. And you have to be able to get to the room.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">And I still uld do that back 2007, 2008. I thk Joe, by virtue of bgraphy and generatnally, I thk he n still reach some of those folks. But starts gettg harr, particularly for newers who are g up.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">[MUSIC PLAYING]</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">We had a nversatn 2015 about polarizatn.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">barack obama</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Yeah.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">And how had gone up durg your princy, and somethg you said to me is somethg I wrtled a lot wh my own book, which is that, look, people are pretty polarized when you start talkg about natnal polics. But then you talk to them a b more, and they’re soccer ach. They go to church.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">They got a bs. Their iend down the street don’t thk like them or don’t look like them. And I found that persuasive at the time and hopeful at the time. And one of the thgs —</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">barack obama</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Thgs changed.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">I began to thk sce is polics has bee that much more natnalized. Our polil inti bee that much stronger. And this ia that the other inti are eper seems ls and ls te. That like, when the polil cue , you really know what si you’re on. Do you thk Amerins have jt bee ls persuadable?</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">barack obama</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">What you jt intified, part bee of the media astcture I scribed, and the silog of media, part bee of, then, the Tmp princy and the way both sis went to their rpective fortrs, absolutely. I thk ’s real. I thk ’s worse.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">I’m not the origal this. I thk pollg shows . Anecdote shows . Thanksgivg be a lot more difficult. What we’re seeg right now, wh rpect to vacc.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">I mean, I thk ’s fair to say that the difference how Gee H. W. Bh, Bill Clton, Gee W. Bh, Obama admistratn would’ve approached the basic issue of a panmic and vacc, there might be differenc terms of efficy, or how well programs were n, et cetera. But ’s hard to image a prev Republin admistratn pletely ignorg science. Right?</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Yeah. I thought a lot about if this were send term Mt Romney. How would that have gone?</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">barack obama</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Yeah, exactly. And so that is a fundamental shift. And I thk people’s inti have bee far more vted as a rult which si are you on polilly? It spills over to everyday life and even small issu, what prevly were not nsired even polil issu.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">And so if you’re a soccer ach now, there might be a nversatn about, why are all the refs whe? Sudnly, there’s a long argument. And you’ve got each si immediately tweetg about . And be ght wh all sorts of polil stuff.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">And then Fox News might grab the story and n wh the most sensatnal way. And next thg you know, Joe Bin’s beg asked about a soccer game Maryland. And we see that pattern playg self out our daily liv a way that’s unhealthy.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">Some people have remarked, and I thk there’s some mer to this, that the cle of other mediatg stutns that provid a sense of place and who we are, whether was the church, or unn, or neighborhood, those ed to be part of a multiple set of buildg blocks to how we thought about ourselv. And the way the natnal nversatn evolv, sudnly, there’s a right answer across all those l, which is part of the reason why you don’t get ticket spltg the days. Beg a morate Republin, and I wre about this “Promised Land,” you uld see happeng even when I first me . What was strikg was the gree to which the nservative Democrat, or the pro-choice Republin, they were gettg wnowed out of each rpective party.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">And what’s tertg is how filtered. Rather than the public sayg, we don’t like that. Let’s try somethg else. In some ways, the public’s e to see themselv dividually those terms as well.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Well, also, the choic get starker for them. Somethg I was thkg about while you were talkg was this ia that I thk about sometim that I ll richet polarizatn. And I’m not assertg symmetry between two sis. I don’t want to —</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">barack obama</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Good.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Get flack on that.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">barack obama</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Yeah, well. I would jump on you a send. Don’t worry.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">But there’s a dynamic here. You were sayg a uple of mut ago that you thought people knew you were pretty left on social issu, on LGBTQ issu, on a bunch of issu. But they thought you rpected them.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">But you, also, bee ’s eher what you believed, or also bee, and the Democratic Party broadly, thought folks who are movable. You were rtraed on a lot of the issu. You ran 2008, and you were opposed to gay marriage. I’m not sayg that wasn’t te to you, but publicly, that was the posn.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">You talk the book about how Axelrod and Plouffe were very reful about avoidg issu that would exacerbate racial nflict. And you guys foced a lot on enomics. But then as people feel that stuff not workg as the other — they see the worst of the outsi g at them. There’s a dynamic that happens.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">And I see among Democrats too, where ’s like, well, you know what? Then here’s what I really believe. And here’s what I really believe about you. And the parti bee a ltle more each day ls rtraed, bee the benefs of rtrat seem lower. Like, if they’re still gog to say I’m a socialist, then, well, maybe I am a socialist.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">barack obama</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Yeah.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">They’re still gog to say I want to raise tax on middle class people, then, maybe I do, actually.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">barack obama</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">As you said though, is — first of all, and you already offered this veat. But I want to reemphasize ’s not symmetril. Bee Joe Manch’s still a Democrat our party.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">And I thk a lot of people look and say, the guy’s got to n Wt Virgia, a state that Joe Bin lost by 30 percent. And we unrstand that his polics are not gog to be the same as Nancy Pelosi’s. So jt by virtue of the fact that we have to earn vot om a lot of different plac means —</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Meetg center right voters.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">barack obama</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">And meetg center right voters means that, look, the challenge we have is that the other si jt did not functn that way. And that’s not bee there aren’t people the Republin Party who thought that way. You mentned Mt Romney earlier. Well, Mt Romney was the ernor of Massachetts. And when he was, he ma all kds of sensible promis.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">He didn’t approach thgs the way I would approach thgs. But there was some sense of, listen, what the other si thks matters. He’s the ernor of a Democratic state. I’ve got to regnize that I’m probably more nservative than most people this state, which means I have to make some acmodatns. But as soon as he started nng for the princy, sudnly, he’s got to pretend that he’s this hard right gun totg varmt killg guy.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Severely nservative.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">barack obama</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Severely nservative. Well, why is that? It’s bee a dynamic has been created. And that dynamic, part, has to do wh public officials beg lazy and jt sayg, look, this is the easit way for to get our folks riled up is to suggt that Obama is a Mlim socialist who’s gog to take away your guns.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">But some of is a media astcture that persuad a large portn of that base that they had somethg to fear and fed on that fear and rentment, that polics of fear rentment, a way that, ironilly, end up beg a strajacket for the Republin officials themselv. And some of them got gobbled up by the monster that had been created and sudnly found themselv retirg. And they uldn’t functn, bee they weren’t angry or rentful enough for the base they had stoked.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">I thk ’s fair to say, the book, you’re cril of the media at pots. How much do you feel the media reflects polics? And how much do you feel shap polics?</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">barack obama</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Well, look, there are certa bad habs that the media cultivated and had to, then, reexame durg the Tmp era. The classic beg the what nstut objectivy? as I joke about. Print Obama, today, was savagely attacked by the Republins for suggtg that the earth is round. Republins suggted that there’s some hidn documents showg the earth is, fact, flat.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">In rponse, Obama said, well — and then go on. But ’s prented as if he said, they said, and that’s reportg. And you’d have some vague rner of the prs room engaged fact checkg after the fact. But that’s not what appeared on the nightly news.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">And tght somebody like a Mch McConnell that there is no downsi for misstatg facts, makg stuff up, engagg out and out obstctn, reversg posns that you held jt a few mut ago. Bee now, ’s polilly expedient to do so. That never reached the public a way where the public uld make a judgment about who’s actg rponsibly and who isn’t.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">And that, I thk, was not driven by the polics of the moment. I mean, I thk that the media was plic creatg that dynamic a way that is difficult. Bee as we disvered durg the Tmp admistratn, if an admistratn is jt misstatg facts all the time, starts lookg like, gosh, the media’s anti-Tmp. And this be more evince of a left wg nspiracy, and liberal el tryg to gang up on the guy.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Yeah. There’s the objectivy crique, which is there. And I actually thk many ways, the media got better at.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">But there’s another one laced through. And ’s tertg, bee I thk you both benefed om and then bee wary of , which is that, I will say, the media, one of our central bias is towards excg ndidat. You were an excg ndidate 2008, but later on, that’s also somethg that Donald Tmp activat —</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">barack obama</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Y.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">In a different way. You have a big set piece at the Whe Hoe Corrponnts Dner, where “The Washgton Post” v Donald Tmp after a year of birtherism to s at their table.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">barack obama</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">That’s how my book ends.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">I don’t want to spoil the endg. People may not know that happened.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">barack obama</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Yeah.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">But even a broar sense, excg ndidat are ually, one, they shape perceptns of parti. But two, on the right, they tend to be que extreme. They fely tend to be both directns, eher more liberal or more nservative. But part of the dynamic, I thk, you’re talkg about — and then the media is prsured by social media, where —</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">barack obama</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Yeah, very much so now.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">You look out there, and you look around, like who’s up there on Facebook and on Redd. And nflict sells.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">barack obama</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Yeah.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">And that’s a way which I thk the perceptns of the parti are changg for people. Bee whoever is chair of the Hoe Ways and Means Commtee —</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">barack obama</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Who’s nsired the voice of the party?</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Exactly. Who be the voice? How do you reflect on that?</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">You me up. Social media is great for you. It seems to me you’ve got some different views on now. How do you thk about that tra off between excement and then some of the other quali that are a ltle b more nuanced that you worry people are losg sight of?</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">barack obama</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Yeah. Look, I thk is entirely fair, and you’re right. Even durg my mpaign, I got wary of . What my polil advisor, David nsultant lled — David Axelrod lled the —</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">I like David nsultant though.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">barack obama</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Yeah, David nsultant, right. Generic. What Axelrod lled the Obama in. You got the posters. And you got the crowds and very much foced on me as this et burstg onto the scene.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">But I have to tell you that there’s a difference between the issue of excement, charisma, vers rewardg people for sayg the most outrageo thgs. I don’t thk anybody would acce me of havg trafficked jt poppg off and creatg ntroversy jt for the sake of . The excement I brought was tryg to tell a story about Ameri, where we might all start workg together and overe some of our tragic past, and move forward, and build a broar sense of muny. And turns out that those virtu actually did exce people.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">So I don’t agree that that’s the only way that you n get people to read newspapers or click on a se. It requir more imagatn and maybe more effort. And requir some rtrat to not feed the outrage, flammatory approach to polics. And I thk that folks didn’t do .</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">And look, as I note towards the end of the book, the birther thg, which was jt a taste of thgs to e, started the right wg media esystem. But a whole bunch of mastream folks, who later got very exercised about Donald Tmp, they booked him all the time. Bee he boosted ratgs. But that wasn’t somethg that was pelled.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">It was nvenient for them to do. Bee was a lot easier to book Donald Tmp to let him claim that I wasn’t born this untry than was to how do I actually create an tertg story that people will want to watch about e equaly. That’s a harr thg to e up wh.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Let me get at that piece of too. So I vered the Affordable Care Act pretty closely. I thk ’s fair to say, and I’ve thought a lot about s polil afterlife. It survived the Republin attempts to gut . It did bee popular.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">barack obama</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Yeah.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">And —</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">barack obama</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">I thought was gog to happen a ltle b quicker, but didn’t —</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Well, that’s sentially what I want to get at here, which is that, at the same time, the thg that is strikg to me is didn’t nvert many voters over to the Democratic si, cludg Republin voters. Sarah Kliff did great piece on this at Vox at one pot, cludg Republin voters who relied on who would have lost if the folks they were votg for got their way. Do you thk, given how tense polil inti are now, that policy n persua people to vote differently? Or is partisanship now almost immune to the material nsequenc of ernance?</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">barack obama</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">I thk, over time, do. I thk ’s not as immediate. And look, I thk ’s important to remember that, when we me to office, the enomy was a eefall. We had to scramble and do a bunch of stuff, some of which was hered, some of which we iated to stabilize the fancial system.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">People hated . I scribe the book, ’s hard to unrsre how much the bank bailouts jt angered everyone, cludg me. And then you have this long, slow revery. And although the enomy revers technilly quickly, ’s another five years before we’re really back to people feelg like OK, the enomy is movg and workg for me.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">And the tth is that if Donald Tmp don’t get elected, let’s say, a Joe Bin or the person who was nng, Hillary Clton, had immediately succeed me, and the enomy sudnly has three percent unemployment, I thk we would have nsolidated the sense that, oh, actually, the polici that Obama put place worked. The fact that Tmp terpts, sentially, the ntuatn of our polici but still benefs om the enomic stabily and growth that we had iated means people aren’t sure. Well, gosh, unemployment’s three and a half percent unr Donald Tmp.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">Now, I would argue, and I thk a lot of enomists that you know and I know would suggt that, mostly, that had nothg to do wh Donald Tmp’s polici. And mostly had to do wh we had put the enomy on a footg, where he sentially jt ntued the longt peacetime revery Amerin history and staed job growth Amerin history. But if you’re the average voter, you’re thkg, well, looks like Republin polici are workg for me to some gree, which probably explas why Tmp was able to make some roads, most, overstated but real roads among non-whe voters feelg like, you know what? I’m workg and makg cent money, and thgs feel pretty good.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">So that clouds what I thk would have been a more impactful shift polil views towards Democrats as a rult of my princy. And I thk that what we’re seeg now is Joe Bin and the admistratn are sentially fishg the job, and I thk ’ll be an tertg tt. 90 percent of the folks who are there were there my admistratn. They are ntug and buildg on the polici we talked about, whether ’s the Affordable Care Act, or our climate change agenda, and the Paris Peace Acrds, and figurg out how do we improve the ladrs to mobily through thgs like muny lleg.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">And if, as I thk they will be, they’re succsful over the next four years, I thk that will have an impact. Do overri the inty polics that has e to domate Twter and the media, and that has seeped to how people thk about polics? Probably not pletely, but at the margs, look, if you’re changg five percent of the electorate, that mak a difference.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">Most importantly, I thk do have an impact for young people as they are formg their ias about polics and who they are. And I was both a maniftatn of the more progrsive views that young people brought to polics 2008, and 2009, 2010. And I thk my princy helped to solidify a huge tilt the directn of progrsive polics among young people that is now ntug to their 30s. As lennials and even the Gen Z-ers are startg to marry and have fai, that their polil inty has been shaped and changed pretty signifint ways.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">[MUSIC PLAYING]</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">One thg that you’re more optimistic than me on the book is that better polil munitn n really change the way people receive policy. And I thk more about how uld you do policy sign, so the policy self uld speak more clearly?</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">barack obama</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">I actually thk we agree on that. You hear the book arguments that we would have about — there’d be a bunch of bad reportg around the enomy. And I’d get on gmpy, and I’d ll my advisors. I’d say, I need to do more prs nferenc. Or I need to give another speech.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">And they actually were pretty clear to me. They’re all like, look, as long as unemployment still at ne percent, don’t matter how many speech you give. It’s not gog to change thgs.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">On the other hand, I ed an example, which I thk rerc your pot, and a pot I know you ma your book, which was when people ask me what would I do differently, a lot of tim, I’ll give broad generalizatns. Bee I don’t want to get too ep the weeds. But you’ll appreciate this, beg a policy nerd, the Makg Work Pay tax cut that was part of our stimul, where Larry Summers talks me to the ia that we should spread out the tax cut people’s weekly paychecks the drip, drip, drip fashn. Bee the social science shows that they’re more likely to spend .</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">But if they get a big lump sum, then they might jt pay down bt. And we need more stimul. And I thought, well, that mak sense. But of urse, as a rult, nobody thought I’d cut tax.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">Everybody was nfint that I had raised their tax, even Democrats thought I had, to pay for all the other stuff I was dog like health re. And that’s an example of a policy sign where we were too stubborn I thk ially around, yeah, we’ll jt get the policy right, and the polics will take re of self. And I should have done a eper dive to FDR regnizg that you know what? You’ve got to sell the sizzle as well as the steak. Bee that creat the polil aln to ntue . The New Deal had all kds of polici that actually didn’t work as well as they should have. We get polil phras like pork barrel and logrollg. A lot of that out of the mismanagement of the feral programs, but you know what? People saw , and they felt . And they associated their liv gettg better or some ncrete help wh those polici, and that’s important.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">And I thk a fair crique of , when I look back, is the fact that I was, sometim, too stubborn about, no, we’re gog to jt play straight. And let’s not worry about how the policy sells. If works, then that’s what we should do.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Are there other sign ias that you would advise people to take serly? I thk a lot about, and I realize some of the technil reasons has happened, but how the Affordable Care Act took four years to beg liverg the bulk of health surance benefs.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">barack obama</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">It’s a good example. And so, look, I thk that there’s no doubt that the team that is now the Bin admistratn and thkg about, whether ’s the Covid stimul package, or how do you build off the Affordable Care Act, they’re mdful of the lsons. And they’re sayg to themselv, all right. We’ve got to sell this.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">So on health re particular: how do we make this simple and stupid? So that ’s easily explaed. It’s easily unrstood. The expansn of Mediid, for example, was probably the part of the Affordable Care Act that had the biggt impact, quickly, easy to admister, didn’t have a lot of movg parts. Bee was buildg off an existg program.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">And look, there are tim where is important, fact, to go ahead and plant some seeds, even if don’t yield quick polil benefs. I e the example our stimul of the $90 billn we vted the green enomy. Polilly, that wasn’t a wner for .</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">We knew that we were gog to get some Solyndras, for example, the famo example that the Republins beat over the head wh, where we’d given a loan to a solar pany that go belly up. But the tth is that the reason now we’re seeg such enormo breakthroughs terms of everythg om electric rs, to solar efficiency, to wd power — all those thgs that we n now build on pursu of future climate policy — a lot of that relied on those programs we started that didn’t have a lot of polil benef.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">Part of what I try to make clear the book is, and sometim my iends the Democratic Party who cricize on the left misapprehend this ia that we had some iologil aversn to phg the envelope on policy. That’s not the se. We had jt polil nstrats we had to al wh, and we had an emergency we had to al wh. But one thg I was pretty clear about early on, and I showed that wh the Affordable Care Act, was, given we were a hole enomilly anyway, there was no pot tryg to go small bore.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">Bill Clton was able, his send term, to polilly go small. Bee the enomy was hummg and people were feelg good. We were alg wh what, at that pot, was the worst recsn sce the Great Deprsn. Polilly, we were gog to get clobbered the midterms. It really didn’t matter what we did.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">And so we jt tried to do as much as we uld wh the polil nstrats that we had. And I thk that the environment now is such, partly bee Republins spent $2 trilln of their own stimul, and shockgly, weren’t ncerned when they were power about fics, partly bee of the urgency of Covid and the panmic and people regnizg they jt need immediate relief and help now, I thk we’re now an environment, where if we jt get some big piec place buildg on what we did before, people will notice. And will have a polil impact.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">It don’t overri all the ep, subterranean polil dynamics of our culture, race obvly, beg at the top of that list, but changg genr rol, and those who still are engaged anized relign feelg attacked by an atheist culture. And those are thgs that are ep. They’ve always been here.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">They’re not gog away anytime soon. But I gus what I am still nfint about is: if we n get some stuff done that works, and we give people the benef of the doubt, and we ntue to reach out, as opposed to yell, that we get better out rather than worse out. And ’s not gog to solve all our problems.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">I hard you say the other day that you’d like to know what those UFO objects are too.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">barack obama</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Absolutely.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">If me out that they were alien, if we got unniable proof of that, how would that change your polics, or your theory about where humany should be gog?</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">barack obama</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">That is an tertg qutn.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Thank you.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">barack obama</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Well, first of all, pends on if we — have we ma ntact wh them?</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">No, jt dron. They jt —</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">barack obama</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">We jt know that —</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">We jt know they’re om afar.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">barack obama</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">The prob have been sent.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Yeah.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">barack obama</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">But we have no way of reachg out to them.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">We n’t get touch. We jt know we’re not alone, and somethg’s been here.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">barack obama</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">It’s tertg. It wouldn’t change my polics at all. Bee my entire polics is premised on the fact that we are the ty anisms on this ltle speck floatg the middle of space. The analogy I always ed to e when we were gog through tough polil tim, and I’d try to cheer my staff up, then I’d tell them a statistic that John Holdren, my science advisor, told me, which was that there are more stars the known universe than there are gras of sand on the pla Earth.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Your staff mt have loved that.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">barack obama</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Well, sometim cheered them up. Sometim they’d jt roll their ey and say, oh, there he go aga. But the pot is, I gus, that my polics has always been premised on the notn that the differenc we have on this pla are real. They’re profound, and they e enormo tragedy as well as joy. But we’re jt a bunch of humans wh doubts and nfn.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">We do the bt we n. And the bt thg we n do is treat each other better, bee we’re all we got. And I would hope that the knowledge that there were aliens out there would solidify people’s sense that what we have mon is a ltle more important.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">But no doubt, there would be immediate arguments about, well, we need to spend a lot more money on weapons systems to fend ourselv. And new religns would pop up, and who knows what kd of arguments we’d get to. We’re good at manufacturg arguments for each other.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Here’s another long view qutn. What are we dog now, humany, that we’ll be judged for most harshly 100 years?</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">barack obama</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Well, if we don’t get a handle on climate change, then if there’s anybody around to judge , they’ll judge pretty harshly on . Bee the data’s here. We know . One thg that I thk maybe the panmic has done is to start gettg people to thk sle.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">You n actually put a dollar figure to what would take to transn to a clean enomy. It’s the trillns of dollars a year globally. But when you thk about how much was spent and how much was lost one year, as a rult of the panmic, sudnly, makg vtments, obvly, public health systems immediately says, oh, that’s a pretty good vtment. Siarly, maybe opens up people’s imagatns to say, we n actually afford to make this transn. There are some sacrific volved, but we n do .</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">And then fally, what are three books you’d remend to the dience?</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">barack obama</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Three books, a book I jt read, “The Overstory” by Richard Powers, ’s about tre and the relatnship of humans to tre. And ’s not somethg I would have immediately thought of, but a iend gave to me. And I started readg , and changed how I thought about the earth. And changed how I see thgs, and that’s always, for me, a mark of a book worth readg.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">“Memorial Drive” by Natasha Trethewey, ’s a memoir, jt a tragic story. Her mother’s former hband, or her former stepfather, murrs her mother. And ’s a medatn on race, and class, and grief, upliftg surprisgly, at the end of but jt wrenchg.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">And then this one is easier to remember. I actually ught up on some past readgs of Mark Twa. There’s somethg about Twa that I wanted to revis, bee he speaks a ltle b of — he’s that most sential of Amerin wrers. And there’s his satiric eye and his actual outrage that sometim gets buried unr the edy I thought was eful to revis.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Print Barack Obama, thank you very much.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">barack obama</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Great to talk to you. Thank you, Ezra.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">[MUSIC PLAYING]</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">“The Ezra Kle Show” is a productn of New York Tim Opn. It is produced by Jeff Geld, Roge Karma, and Annie Galv, fact checkg by Michelle Harris, origal mic by Isaac Jon, and mixg by Jeff Geld.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">[MUSIC PLAYING]</p></dd></dl></div></div></div></div><div style="posn:absolute;width:0;height:0;visibily:hidn;display:none"></div><hear class="css-1vwfk9f" data-breakpot=""><div style="width:100%" data-ttid="flt-layout"><div style="background-image:url()" class="css-197zlhc e1llfg0"><div class="css-1hmsypo e1llfg2"><div class="css-131hid3 e1llfg3"><div class="css-1uhi299 e1llfg1"></div><div class="css-1tloyb6"><div class="css-ah35qo ehra6vc0"><a href=" class="css-2ne0py"><span class="css-1f76qa2"><img alt="The Ezra Kle Show logo" src="><span>The Ezra Kle Show</span></span></a></div></div><div class="css-1r0dpua e1llfg4"><div class="css-wfiq9c edye5kn0"><div><h1 class="css-15oz550 edye5kn2">Obama Explas How Ameri Went From ‘Y We Can’ to ‘MAGA’</h1><h2 class="css-syyj5g edye5kn3">The former print also discs Joe Bin, aliens and three of his favore books.</h2></div><span class="css-xpptmx edye5kn4"></span><button type="button" class="css-w62hzm" aria-haspopup="te" aria-label="Show Aud Transcript"><div class="css-1vd84sn"><svg xmlns=" width="24" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 20" fill="#F8F8F8"><path fill-le="evenodd" clip-le="evenodd" d="M0 0H24V20H0V0ZM3 7H21V9H3V7ZM21 11H3V13H21V11ZM3 15H21V17H3V15ZM11 3H3V5H11V3Z" fill="#F8F8F8"></path></svg><span class="css-16bt4xd">Transcript</span></div></button></div><div class="css-1g7y0i5 e1drnplw0"><button tabx="100" class="css-1rtlxy" type="button" aria-label="close"><svg width="60" height="60" viewBox="0 0 60 60" fill="none"><circle cx="30" cy="30" r="30" fill="whe" fill-opacy="0.9"></circle><path fill-le="evenodd" clip-le="evenodd" d="M38.4844 20.1006L39.8986 21.5148L21.5138 39.8996L20.0996 38.4854L38.4844 20.1006Z" fill="black"></path><path fill-le="evenodd" clip-le="evenodd" d="M21.5156 20.1006L20.1014 21.5148L38.4862 39.8996L39.9004 38.4854L21.5156 20.1006Z" fill="black"></path></svg></button><div class="css-rdbib0 e1drnplw1"></div><div class="css-18ow4sz e1drnplw2"><div aria-labelledby="modal-tle" role="regn"><hear class="css-1bzlfz"><div class="css-mln36k" id="modal-tle">transcript</div><button type="button" class="css-1igvuto"><div class="css-f40pzg"></div><span>Back to The Ezra Kle Show</span></button><div class="css-f6lhej" data-ttid="transcript-playback-ntrols"><div class="css-1ialerq"><button tabx="99" type="button" class="css-1t9gw" aria-label="play"><svg xmlns=" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none"><path fill-le="evenodd" clip-le="evenodd" d="M8 13.7683V6L14.5 9.88415L8 13.7683Z" fill="var(--lor-ntent-sendary,#363636)"></path><circle cx="10" cy="10" r="9.25" stroke="var(--lor-stroke-primary,#121212)" stroke-width="1.5"></circle></svg></button><div class="css-1701swk"><svg xmlns=" viewBox="0 0 40 36" id="el_0kpS9qL_S"><tle>bars

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