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Barack Obama's interview with Stephen Colbert draws criticism for being too soft

8 minutes to read

A Late Show with Stephen Colbert and guest Barack Obama. Photo / Getty Images

news.com.au

It was obvious from the opening minutes of Barack Obama's latest interview that he wasn't going to be fielding any tough questions.

Former US president Barack Obama has been doing the media rounds in recent weeks to promote his new book.

More than 1.7 million copies of A Promised Land – the first of two lengthy volumes Obama plans to publish – have already been sold.

Read More

And yet, as every other former political leader who's written a memoir knows, that number can always go higher with a little extra kick of publicity.

Hence Obama's appearance on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert last night.

None of the former president's interviews on this tour have been particularly hard-hitting – his talk with The Atlantic was probably the most interesting, but it certainly wasn't tough – and it was immediately apparent that this chat with Colbert would be no different.

"Can we just take a moment? I just – and I want to talk. I just want to take a moment to drink you in for just a moment, because I'm having to get used to looking at a president again," Colbert told Mr Obama.

A Late Show with Stephen Colbert and guest Barack Obama. Photo / Getty Images
A Late Show with Stephen Colbert and guest Barack Obama. Photo / Getty Images

"You know, I've gotten out of the habit. I've got to warm up for Joe Biden, I don't want to pull anything when I see him take the oath of office. You've got to ease me into this a little bit."

"Joe's going to be great. Kamala's going to be great," Obama replied.

"I have no doubt," said Colbert.

Yes, yes, Colbert is a comedian. We shouldn't expect Jeremy Paxman here. I'm just saying, when it comes to presidential interviews, this one was about as soft as they get, so brace yourself for that.

Conservative Twitter was unimpressed.

Obama expressed confidence that his former vice president would do well in the top job.

"They're going to have big challenges ahead. But we've got the potential of returning to a presidency that is actually paying attention and trying to do right by all people and not just some," he said.

Colbert brought up Biden's recent announcement of several nominees for his Cabinet, which has caused some drama among the president-elect's staff.

He didn't mention that drama. He just said the nominees were great.

President Obama and Trump in the White House in 2016 pretending not to hate each other. Photo / Getty Images
President Obama and Trump in the White House in 2016 pretending not to hate each other. Photo / Getty Images

"A lot of announcements of Cabinet positions over the last two days. Guys you know. There's a whole lot of return to the sort of, the stability, and what's that word? Competency of your eight years," he said.

"Which is novel, it's like a vacation right now. Someone who actually wants to do the job they're hired to do. That's an interesting idea, isn't it?"

"And have experience, and have read about stuff, and know where countries are. It's great," Obama agreed.

As the interview moved on to matters of greater substance, Obama attacked the "shambolic nature" of the Trump administration's response to the coronavirus pandemic, saying it had been "frustrating" to watch.

"Especially after you've left the game plan for this very specific thing, and talked about it before you left," Colbert added, bringing up the so-called "pandemic playbook" the Obama White House left for Donald Trump.

"That's the frustration. This would have been hard for anyone. I mean, you see even people like [German Chancellor] Angela Merkel, who is herself a scientist, exemplary – but you've still seen some spikes in Germany," Obama conceded.

"But let's take Canada, where the death rate is 39 per cent ours, per capita. Right? That's a measure of, if we had done the work, that was not rocket science, right?

"We're not talking about inventing vaccines. I'm glad to see the vaccine is now coming on board. But preliminarily, communicating effectively, respecting the science, not undermining the leading epidemiologist in the country and saying he's an idiot, being consistent in terms of masks and social distancing, not suggesting that this is some act of oppression, but rather just a common sense thing to prevent people from getting sick.

"You know, had we just taken those steps, there is no doubt that we would have saved some lives. And ironically, the economy would be better, because we wouldn't be swinging back and forth, and people would feel more confident about making day-to-day decisions."

Colbert asked whether Obama was surprised that Trump had failed to see that "looking like he cared" could have helped him politically.

"It would have been good politics as well. Yes," he answered.

"I think that is a measure of how detached from reality and how embedded ideological and conspiratorial thinking has become, where you're doing it even when it's to your own disadvantage."

Obama brought up an earlier part of Colbert's career when he hosted a show called The Colbert Report, a satirical news programme in which he pretended to be a right-wing host.

"In your original show, you're satirising a certain attitude. But you never thought that folks would actually start believing," he said.

"I did not know I was a prophet. I thought I was a comedian," Colbert quipped.

"You couldn't make up some of the stuff that you're seeing," Obama continued.

"It is to the detriment of the country, but as you said, it runs contrary to what would have been smart politics if the Republicans wanted to maintain the White House.

"And that in some ways is more troubling. Because now it's no longer even strategic. It is – you're drinking your own Kool-Aid in a way that I think is troubling.

"One of the big challenges Joe Biden is going to have is figuring out how to puncture that information bubble that not just Republican officials, but a sizeable portion of voters, are in right now."

Polls have shown a majority of the people who voted for Trump believe his baseless claims that the election was rigged against him through massive voter fraud.

"What the hell happens now?" Colbert wondered.

"When you have maybe about 40 per cent of the public think that Joe Biden won by cheating? And they believe all these fantasies being propagated about Democratic cabals that seem to be pulling the strings.

"How do you then speak to those people? Even if you're someone like Joe Biden, who's capable, believes in a Government doing the job to serve the people, and is empathetic to the needs and concerns of the people who don't vote him.

"Part of what I think is extraordinary about what we're about to go through is that you know that Joe Biden actually does care about the people who didn't vote for him, and why they didn't, and what they think. How does he reach those people?"

"Look, I think he's in a good position to make the effort. That fact that he won is indicative of the message he sent of wanting to unify the country," Obama said.

"I do think people are exhausted by this World Wrestling Federation, constant cage match, and people want to feel like a day passes without being dominated by something crazy coming out of the White House."

Finally, Colbert brought up a "chilling" moment that had stuck with him from the transition period four years ago.

Two days after the 2016 election, Obama invited president-elect Trump to the White House. The pair spoke behind the scenes and then sat down for a rather awkward photo op in the Oval Office, during which both men went through the motions of saying some nice things about each other.

"That was a chilling moment for me to watch, because I perceived in that moment the dignity of the office – or rather the trappings of dignity and status that rightly falls upon the person that holds that office – and I had an emotional flash of all the ways that could be abused over the next four years," Colbert said.

"Were you having a similar feeling in that moment?"

"Yeah. Yeah, it was a concern," Obama admitted.

"And were those concerns borne out over the next four years?" he asked.

"Exceeded," the former president replied.

In case you're wondering how the conversation concluded, Obama and Colbert competed to see who could shoot more scrunched up balls of paper into a rubbish bin.

Colbert won 8-0.