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- [00:01]
Barack Obama
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- [00:28]
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- [00:57]
Barack Obama
My inauguration had more people and that's demonstrable. I say that, by the way, not because, like, I don't care, but facts are important.
- [01:17]
Podcast Host
Former President Barack Obama brought the House down. This was one of the biggest speeches he has ever given thus far during the Trump regime. You heard him right there talking about objective facts. This all took place at the Connecticut Forum. Heather Cox Richardson was the moderator of this incredible event. I want to play for you some key portions of this event. You'll hear from former President Barack Obama. I really want to hear more from him in times like this because when he delivers these speeches, it is incredible. And the way he knows how to precisely go after Donald Trump and meet the moment is a skill that is really unique to former President Barack Obama. So let me share this clip with you right here. You're going to want to watch every minute of this. Let's play it.
- [02:09]
Barack Obama
We're also witnessing is that when the system is captured by those who, say, have a weak attachment to democracy are not. I don't even think that's a controversial statement at this point. No, I'm actually being serious now. It was a controversial statement. Now it is self acknowledged. I mean, if you follow regularly what is said by those who are in charge of the federal government right now, there is a weak commitment to what we understood, and not just my generation, at least Since World War II, our understanding of how a liberal democracy is supposed to work. And when I say liberal, I don't mean left. I mean liberal in the sense of believing in rule of law and independent judiciary and freedom of the press and freedom of assembly and protest and compromise and Pluralism, all those institutional norms and laws that were embodied in the Constitution imperfectly and then over time were expanded so that we had a basic understanding of like, I can't just be picked up on the street and hauled off to another country. That's not something, that's not, that's not, that wasn't a, that wasn't a partisan view. That wasn't a Republican or Democratic notion that that shouldn't happen. That was an American value and norm. And so, so what I believe continues to be that there has to be responses and pushback from civil society, from various institutions and individuals outside of government. But there also has to be people in government, in both parties who say, well, no, you can't do that, you can't do that. And what we're seeing right now is when you do not have those constraints and guardrails, right? When you don't have people inside of government who say, no, this is how the law works and we should follow it. Democracy is not self executing. It requires people, judges and people in the Justice Department and people throughout the government who take an oath to uphold the Constitution. It requires them to take those that oath seriously. And when that isn't happening, we start drifting into something that is not consistent with American democracy. It is consistent with autocracies. It's consistent with Hungary under Orban. It's consistent with places that hold elections but do not otherwise observe what we think of as a fair system in which everybody's voice matters and people have a seat at the table and there are checks and balances and nobody's above the law and we're not there yet completely. But I think that we are dangerously close to normalizing behavior like that. And we need people both outside government and inside of government saying let's not go over that cliff because it's hard to recover. And part of the reason I think it's interesting, when I was first elected, we were in the middle of a huge global financial crisis. It had started on Wall street. So understandably other countries were annoyed about it. And the Iraq war obviously was not popular around the world. And so our reputation and our leadership globally was, had dipped pretty significantly. And so I come in first year and I'm doing a lot of travel and making a lot of speeches and holding town halls and like this in foreign countries. And one of the raps that I got from the opposition, the Republican side, was he's on an apology tour. And basically what they were arguing was that I wasn't just going around bullying other countries and telling them that we're better than you, which I thought was a bad strategy to get them to cooperate to. That's human nature, I think. But what they always missed, and what I would always say everywhere I went around the world, was what makes America exceptional is not that it has the biggest military, it's not that it has the largest economy. What really makes America exceptional is that it's the only big country on earth and maybe the only real superpower in history that is made up of people from every corner of the globe. And they show up, they come here and, and, and the glue that holds us together is this crazy experiment called democracy. And this, this. This idea that we can somehow, despite all our differences, we don't look alike, we don't worship God in the same way, we don't like the same foods. And yet when this experiment works, it gives the world a little bit of hope because it says it is possible for human beings who are not bound by tribe or race or blood, but are instead bound by an idea that they can somehow work together and arrive at a common good. That's what made America exceptional. And so, and so I think we have to recover pride in that. That's what makes us special. That and our capacity through this constitutional process and representative government and an adherence to certain ideas has allowed us to get better. Not perfect, but get better over time, with just one big civil war. Large exception. But otherwise, we've managed to make real progress.
- [11:32]
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- [12:46]
Podcast Host
I want to play for you this other incredible portion of this event at the Connecticut Forum. Let's play it.
- [12:53]
Barack Obama
One of the most important challenges I think our democracy faces is how do we regain some common sense of truth. Not absolute truth, but rough, basic truth. In 2020, one person won the election, and it wasn't the guy complaining about it. And that's just a fact. That wasn't just like, you know, my inauguration had more people, and that's demonstrable. I say that, by the way, not because, like, I don't care, but facts are important, because if you can't. And I think one of the most. One of the most pernicious things that has happened is we have a situation now where we're not just arguing policy or values or opinions, but basic facts are being contested. And that is a problem, because then the marketplace of ideas of the democracy don't work. I've said this before, but I always repeat it. You and I can have an opinion about this little side table. You know, you might not like the design, might not like the color or how it's finished, but we can have that discussion. If I say to you, this is a lawnmower, you'll think I'm crazy. And if I really believe it, I'll think you're crazy. And we're now in a situation in which we are having these just basic factual arguments, and that further undermines trust. And those in power, those with money, exploit that space in which nobody knows what's true. Vladimir Putin and the KGB had a saying that was then adopted proudly by Steve Bannon, which was, if you want propaganda to be effective, you don't have to convince people that what you are saying is true. You just have to flood the zone with so much poop. They used a different word. But you have to flood the zone with so much untruth constantly that at some point people don't believe anything. So it doesn't matter if a candidate running for office just is constantly just hypothetically saying untrue things, or if an elected president claims that he won when he lost and that the system was rigged, but then when he wins, then it isn't rigged because he won. It doesn't matter if everybody believes it. It just matters if everybody starts kind of throwing up their hands and saying, well, I guess it doesn't matter. And that's what's happened. That's what's happened in one of our major political parties. You have a whole bunch of people who know that's not true, but we will pretend like it is. And that is dangerous.
- [17:40]
Podcast Host
And finally, here's the last clip I want to share with you from this truly incredible event where former President Barack Obama did not hold back. Here, play this clip.
- [17:51]
Barack Obama
There is a story about America that includes everybody. It's a good story. It's a story about people who. It's a story about people who aren't pretentious. And I don't believe that anybody is worse than them or better than them. That we're all. We're all endowed with a core dignity and are deserving of rights and respect and have to assume responsibility for ourselves individually and our collective lives. And we all play a part. And that historically has not been a. I'm repeating myself here. It hasn't been a Republican or a Democratic idea. That is an American idea that everybody could, could tap into. And if that ends up being our starting point for a common identity, if our starting point is these homespun values of we don't have aristocracies here. We don't have rank, we don't have monarchies, we have rule of law. All people are equal in the eyes of the law. That we all have a part to play in democracy, that we all have to take individual responsibility for our lives. But we also have to, as Lincoln said, do some things together because we can do it better together than we can do it apart.
- [20:02]
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So.
- [20:04]
Barack Obama
If that's our starting point, then I think we'll be okay. But that's not where we are right now. I think right now what we're seeing is a politics that is reasserting a bad story of America, which is that even if there aren't technically ranks, we like the idea of caste and we like the idea of hierarchy. And some people, this is our country, the real Americans, and these other folks are the phony and the fake Americans or not even American. And that story also has a deep history in this country, right, that says, okay, the first Americans aren't Americans and slaves are not Americans, and women are sort of Americans as long as they're doing what their husbands say and people of different sexual orientations, they're not. We don't even want to hear about them. That story has been part of America as well. And, you know, people sometimes ask me what is my favorite. What is the favorite of the speeches I've given? And probably my favorite, and it will be a portion of. It's on the face of the Presidential center that will be opening next year in Chicago is the speech I gave in selma for the 50th anniversary. And the reason I love that speech is because to me, that contest on the Edmund Pettus Bridge is as important a battle as Concord and Lexington and Appomattox. Because you have, you have on one side, you have, you have on one side John Lewis in a backpack and an apple and a toothbrush, and maids and college students have flown down and rabbis and young priests. And they are carrying with them across that bridge this story, this better story that we're all equal, we all have a place. Nobody's worse, nobody's better, and we can all join together. And on the other side, you've got folks on horseback with billy clubs and guns and dogs, and they're carrying a different story, which is no, ignore what we say in the Declaration of Independence. We have cast. And some people are better and more deserving than others and have more power and more wealth. And so I think we are. That question right now is being called and you asked about universities, law firms, businesses. One of my bigger concerns is when I see institutions cower before this bad story because they're worried that it will affect their bottom lines in some fashion. And the question I've asked, because there have been partners in law firms who have called me and asked me about this, there have been university presidents who I've had conversations with about this businesses who I've, who've asked me how they think they should handle this. And what I've said to them is, well, what do you believe? Like, like that's your starting point. What do you care about? What's your mission? If, if you believe, if you are a university, what is your core mission? And if, as I think your core mission should be, it's to teach, to transmit knowledge and broaden horizons for young minds and transmit information that allows them not just to get a job, but also to live meaningful lives and be good citizens, if that's your mission, then it really doesn't matter what the threats are coming up from the outside. You push back against somebody who says you can't carry out that mission. If you are a law firm, then now obviously you're running a business. It's a partnership. You're billing, you want clients, but you're also all supposed to be officers of the court. You went into the Law, presumably not just because you couldn't think of anything else to do, or your dad or your mom thought it was a good idea. Presumably you went into the law because you believe in the law. So if you are getting pressure from. From government saying ignore or fudge or compromise that commitment, you have to push back. Now, one thing that I've noticed, and I've said this before in a few other venues, Heather, you and I, we both grew up after this World War II and America's, you know, the colossus around the world. And we're exporting all these ideas, and our economy is growing and terrible things happened, have happened during our lifetimes. Vietnam and assassinations and, you know, killing fields in Rwanda. So I don't want to in any way minimize those things. But what's been fascinating about this period in our history, and it's anomalous, is that things got sort of steadily better. The world became hugely wealthier and healthier and better educated, and infant mortality dropped, and women and girls suddenly had access to education and human rights became an idea that people violated but were guilty about. If you listen to sometimes, like just Nixon, the Nixon tapes, just talking about bombing Cambodia, crazy how indifferent they were in ways that were taken for granted then and now. Whatever differences I have with the Bush administration, they wouldn't have conversations like that. And that happened just in 20 years. So I think a lot of us started to take it for granted. And part of what happened was if you were relatively privileged to have been grown up in the United States of America during this period, you could be as progressive and socially conscious as you wanted, and you did not have to pay a price. You could still make a lot of money. You could still hang out in Aspen and Milan and travel and have a house in the Hamptons and still be. And so think of yourself as a progressive. And now things are a little different. Your commitments are being tested. Not the way Nelson Mandela's commitments were tested. Where you go to jail for 27 years, you might lose some of your donors. If you're a university and if you're a law firm, your billings might drop a little bit, which means you cannot remodel that kitchen in your house in the Hamptons this summer. And if you're a business, and this has happened because I've been getting calls about it, yes, you may be threatened by an administration that says, we won't approve a merger, or we will launch an investigation of you and we will make you uncomfortable. Part of what all this tariff stuff is about, by the way because it's such, it is such poorly thought out economics. So you kind of wonder, well, why would you do something that that's just not well thought out? I mean, you can apply tariffs there. There's a place for tariffs to help open up markets and leverage. The United States sometimes gets taken advantage of because we've been the biggest market. China in particular is a key came up, started taking advantage of the rules. And my administration applied tariffs as well, occasionally to counteract these bad practices. But that's not what's going on now. What's going on now is that tariffs means everybody has to come to you for favor. You apply blanket tariffs around the world. Now suddenly Vietnam's got to negotiate tariffs and oh, would it be helpful in terms of lowering tariffs if maybe we approved a golf course for a certain business? All right, let's discuss that. So what's happening is that we now have a situation in which all of us are going to be tested in some way and we are going to have to then decide what our commitments are. And there will be it will be uncomfortable for a time, but that's how you know it's a commitment, because you do it when it's hard, not just when it's easy, not just when it's trendy, not just when it's cool. You know, and sometimes I feel as if during my presidency, I think a lot of people felt comfortable in their righteousness because they didn't have to test it. And now you have to test it a little bit more.
- [32:28]
Podcast Host
You know, I think it was important that I gave you all of those clips. He went on, and he spoke slightly longer than the clips that I just shared with you. He spoke about artificial intelligence. He spoke about his background and his history. He touched on some other topics. But to me, that was a good summary of everything that took place. Make sure you hit subscribe. Leave a comment below about what you thought about what I just shared with you. But I thought that was a very inspiring moment that he just did this week. Let me know what you think. Hit subscribe let's let's keep the momentum.
- [33:07]
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- [33:15]
Podcast Host
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