how effective are the obamas? high minded by bipartisan appeals to our better angels at a time of rampant ugliness, dishonesty and extremist ism in american politics. joining me today are two distinguished scholars who have written extensively about the obama administration and are thus well-placed to comment on obama's activities since he and first lady michelle obama departed the white house on andra gillespie and claude clegg. and we want you in the audience as well. and also viewing online to be part of the discussion to. we look forward to your questions and to dialog with you. andra gillespie. entrepreneur gillespie is associate professor of political science and director of the james weldon johnson institute for the study of race and difference at emory university. her teaching and research are on african american politics, particularly the post-civil rights generation of leadership and political participation. she is the author of the new black politician cory booker. newark and post-racial america, which

barack obama turned that inside out. if you don't understand who i am, if you're trying to figure out who i am, well, here's my uncle. there's a good chance that you have an uncle who is just like this guy. >> charlie, your nephew, barack obama, will end this politics of distortion and division. that flag that hangs from the rafters and that you have waved here this evening, that flag doesn't belong to any ideology. it doesn't belong to any political party. it is an enduring symbol of our nation, and it belongs to all the american people. me to get u. -no hair stylist and cheerleader. so adding a “student” title might feel overwhelming. but what if a school could be there for all of you? career, family, finances and mental health. it's coming along. well, it can. national university. supporting the whole you. (vo) verizon has the epic new phone your business needs on the 5g network it deserves. boost your team's productivity with samsung's fastest processor yet. switch and save up to $1000 on the new galaxy s23 ultra

obama. and the thing that really startled me when i got the letter was that he had, it had the same handwriting as my father's. and my father used to write to me. and, you know, so i was like, what is going on? this is like, i don't know, two years or three years after my father's died. so i opened the letter, kind of feeling really strange. and it turns out to be barack obama, jr. i grew up knowing that i had a brother in hawaii, because my father was very proud of him. his mother always sent barack school results. so we knew about him. but as a child, we don't really relate. we got to meet each other in chicago, finally. we decided on that. we need to get to know each other. and immediately, it was like, this is somebody i've known all my life. and we didn't stop talking for about two days. he asked me so many questions about family, about his father, in particular about his father. i think it was a big hole in his life. we don't know the reasons why his father couldn't see him more, be ar

>> obama scares me. i just -- i'm worried about what will happen to this country if obama takes office. >> tell me he's american. no, he is not. >> i can't trust obama. he's an arab. he is not -- no? >> no, ma'am. no, ma'am. he is a decent family man, citizen that i just happen to have disagreements with. >> i think mccain did the country a real service by refusing to embrace conspiracy theories and really nasty attacks on obama, and rebuking people who tried to launch those attacks. it's very unfortunate that there were pockets of the country that were pushing it that way. >> i will respect him. and i want -- no, no. i want everyone to be respectful. >> john mccain is now so maverick-y, he's mavericking away from his own supporters and getting booed for it. >> he finds himself in this position having created this monster that he can no longer control. there's a way to play this game so that you end up with no good choices. we are watching a campaign that has maneuvered itself into exactly that position.

being a speechwriter for barack obama. the best thing about that, you know, like anybody in there, like he'd say, the perks are great. air force one, marine one for call. but what? i loved people will ask, how do you judge the effectiveness of speech? and it wasn't with polling data or groups and they serve purpose. but i love to traveling with them and just kind of being offstage. sometimes i hide in the back of the room and watching people's heads nod was always my my best way to whether a speech was effective or not. if it's connecting with people and i got to meet some really extraordinary people not just, you know, famous people who traipse through the west wing, but but letter writers, you know, president obama said early on, i think even before took office doing the transition that he wanted to read ten letters every single night that came into the white house. and he was very adamant that i want them to a representative sample it's not helpful if it's just ten letters saying you're great and he made sure we read th

can't afford barack obama. it's time to get someone that will get this economy going and put the american people back to work with good jobs and rising incomes. >> a lot of african-americans in this country are getting flat out crushed in this economy. >> in 2008, african-americans went to the polls in record numbers, with some people in the black community feeling a sense of disappointment. now, the question is, can the president hold on to the black vote? >> do you think there's a reasonable chance that you could lose this election? >> oh, absolutely. i mean, this is going to be a close race. i take nothing for granted. i'm going to be working my tail off trying to present a clear choice to the american people. the one thing i hope i'm able to communicate in this campaign is that i'm not tired, that i am as eager every morning and as determined as i've ever been to work as hard as i can on behalf of the american people. >> four more years! four more years! four more years! four more years! four more years! >>

think michelle obama is smarter than to run just on race. obama was smarter to run on more than just race the first time he ran. >> oh, yes. >> i think she's making an oprah appeal. appealing to suburban women. that's the group that biden lost, right. if she's relatable to suburban women and remembers answers like what is your name. things like joe biden can't remember. what is your childrens names she will get by. she will have the support of the media behind her. i don't doubt they're priming her to be the candidate. i don't know who they have else to put forth. >> that's it the bench is thin. gavin newsome i don't their thithinkthere is debate. and kamala harris, whatever her name is. you have to remember joe biden is the president. >> that's exactly right. i wouldn't laugh at it. she's a way stronger candidate than joe biden who didn't have to go to rallies. he had a bunch of cars honking at him. it's something to consider seriously. i don't know what the point would be. i guess to pretend things are changing. we knows it's a continuatio

president obama must seem to be in a direct dialog with ronald reagan, that obama was arguing for more government and responding to reagan's famous comment that in this present crisis, government is the problem. government is, not the solution. so you can draw a line between fdr in 33 to arguing more government. the new deal as the solution to. ronald reagan in 1981. and then to barack in 2008. respond ing to that. it is because of the importance of the ideas in 1982. in this speech that there are two different books about the reagan and reagan's time. one by a very conservative scholar. one by a very liberal scholar that have the age of reagan, their title. they're simply question that begins in 1980. there's an argument that reagan had begun to get these ideas to the nation before 80 that what reagan's in this inaugural address changed american politics and moved it into a different direction. until obama and then again until trump took a very different perspective. so for writing in 2006. new york times columnist conservative david brooks that reagan's view that less government equa

would meet newly elected barack obama face to face. >> president obama has a big meeting ahead... >> narrator: sizing up his third american president. >> shadows of the cold war will loom over his summit... i remember their first meeting in july of 2009 at putin's dacha, you know, just outside moscow. they're much different personalities. president obama's initial question, about ten seconds, led to a 45-minute, you know, monologue by putin. >> putin is extraordinaril calm, matter-of-fact. he doesn't get ruffled. he may say hard things, but he says them in a very calm, almost matter-of-fact way. unfortunately, president putin simply speaks mistruth after mistruth and tries to misinform. but he does it as easily as he breathes. >> putin obviously did not respect him. putin looked at the united states, d i think it surprised him that a black man would be elected president of the united states. i think that was a, that was a surprise to him. and, who knows, i think there well could be just an element of flat-out racism. that he somehow thought obama was not his equal. that obama did not

until the seventh year of the obama presence. i mean that blacks had it very bad economically under president obama. they supported him overwhelmingly. he was well liked among blacks personality what and among whites and still is he's still pulls very well in terms of popularity but his economic policies his stewardship of the economy did not go over well with blacks or whites. and and so i think blacks remember how bad things were and under trump when they saw their fatter paychecks when they saw how plentiful the job market was. i think they they gave trump credit for that and that's part of the reason i believe he did better in 2020. he was focused on reopening the economy quickly after covid hit and of course a lot of these workers. i'm talking about are service sector workers. they couldn't work from home during the lockdowns and and they wanted to get back to work and trump was in favor of reopening the economy and i think that that redounded to his benefit when it came to to 2020 and that's why although he lost the electio

and as douglas pointed out, rock, obama also won the iowa caucuses as well. so it enables a candidate that doesn't have a lot of backing behind though. and as i said, it's going to be a hard move for the state that already have their primary set that don't want to be penalized by the republican national committee for moving their primaries ahead. of i work in hampshire or really leaving changing the political landscape and that to really decide that they have to do the what the democrats wants. secondly, the other alternative is to do the democrat primary on one day in the republican primary another. and that gets very expensive to especially georgia tech. there's but task barriers across the country to run to statewide election. i think this is really going to be a nonstarter unless there's a lot of cooperation. i think you've heard that our meeting yesterday at the dnc talking about some of the waivers that they are putting in, knowing that a number of these states, we're not going to go along with this new scheme of a primary calendar. let's put that to le

you supported, obama, president obama. i did. i did. i voted in the first election. i voted for president obama actually worked the polls the for obama was in i was living on the upper east side in new york and i was one of the poll workers. that's right. it's not i didn't change any votes did one handedly of new. so yeah, i've had a i've had like, you know, a journey through through politics and also the more important, i think, philosophy cancel culture that cancel culture. how has that affected you in your profession? um so i think, you know, the the article that they brought up, the wall street journal, how it became a far right radical, obviously can't cancel culture wars looming over my head there i was thinking you know man know people aren't even willing to do the work and and see what you've actually produced or even what you've actually said before passing judgment upon you and. i've always been of the mind that if somebody doesn't want to work with me, i want it to be because of something i actually said or done. so, you know, cancel culture think is you k

and as douglas pointed out, rock, obama also won the iowa caucuses as well. so enables a candidate that doesn't have a lot of backing behind though. and as i said, it's going to be a hard move for state that already have their primary set that don't want to be penalize by the republican national committee for moving their primaries ahead of i work at hampshire or really giving changing the political landscape. and that to really decide that they have to do the what the democrats wants. secondly, the other alternative is to do the democrat primary on one day and the republican premier another. and that's gets very expensive to georgia, especially georgia tech. there's but taxpayers across the country to run 2 statewide election. i think this is really going to be a nonstarter unless there's a lot of cooperation. i think you've heard that our meeting yesterday at the dnc talking about some of the waivers that they are putting in, knowing that a number of the states, we're not going to go along with this new scheme of a primary calendar. let's put that to leslie

and barack obama enthusiastically agrees. this is barack obama's lane. he was elected president twice on this kind of stuff, so he immediately jumped into the middle of the memphis tragedy to remind us that white middle class republicans did this. blood is on their hands. whi mil selma, dr king, rodney, trayvon martin. white >> they're all the fruit ofup white supremacy. it'sremacy true. and as obama explainedn twitte on twitter, you can learn a lote were about how it's on his website. okay, so we decided to go there. we went to the obama foundation website today, and there we found an entirbsite toe sectioni how we havcee to continue still to defund the police. yes, people are stil sayl saying it, quote, cities like losos angeles, baltimore and philadelphia have reduced their budgets for their police departments. the obama foundation explained duced th without laughing. these cuts made funding more available for other elements of public safety, like righrdable housing. right. because affordable housing is public safety. >> unless that affordableic housi

former president obama's former dni, james slam before trying to claim that he if he was intelligence officials, did not call the hunter biden laptop story brushing this information before the 2020 election and but tonight, we have the receipts and reports that obama and esser to china, help to the biden family visited business deals and try to edit the shocking number of u.s. trained aromas is transportation secretary pete buttigieg is putting an entity just tweets it is concerned, week after the catastrophic one in ohio and it now authorities are warning power greatest facing class in california by the state is barely head on the wind and solar and is massive electric push plus another shocking allegation of assault getting virginia public school, and this is ground zero of the nation school board parent fighting what is going on there, elizabeth macdonald and the the evening edit is starting right now. liz: welcome to the show and check your right socks ending mixing volatile training, inflation printed from january or the story probably, even hotter than excited, sees .4 percent a

obama's later addresses -- one of obama's later addresses, 2015, he said if he was -- he was going to try to accomplish as much as he could on heat -- on his own. that didn't become a great tagline for the administration it gave ammunition to his opponents of a out-of-control

and as douglas pointed out, rock, obama also won the iowa caucuses as well. so it enables a candidate that doesn't have a lot of backing behind though. and as i said, it's going to be a hard move for states that already have their primary set that don't want to be tantalized by the republican national committee for moving their primaries ahead. of i work in hampshire or really giving changing the political landscape. and that to really decide that they have to do the what the democrats wants. secondly, the other alternative is to do the democrat primary on one day and the republican premier another. and that's gets very expensive to georgia, especially georgia tech. there's but taxpayers across the country to run 2 statewide elections. i think this is really going to be a nonstarter unless there's a lot of cooperation. i think you've heard that our meeting yesterday at the dnc talking about some of the waivers that they were putting in, knowing that a number of these states, we're not going to go along with this new scheme of a primary calendar. let's put tha

obama's later addresses -- one of obama's later addresses, 2015, he said if he was -- he was going to try to accomplish as much as he could on heat -- on his own. that didn't become a great tagline for the administration it gave ammunition to his opponents of a out-of-control pres. biden: the state of the union is strong because you come of the american people, are strong. >> president biden delivers the annual state of the union address, outlining his priorities to congress on tuesday, his first state of the union speech since republicans won back control of the house. following the speech, arkansas governor sarah huckabee sanders will give the republican response paid watch our live coverage of the state of the union, beginning tuesday at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span, c-span now, our free mole video app, or online at c-span.org. >> c-span is your unfiltered view of government. we are funded by these television companies and more, including cox. >> homework can be hard, but squatting in a diner for internet will make it harder. that is why we are providing lower income students access

it was under barack obama for example that we reached the peak . the absolute peak of classified information was 2012 during obama's administration. more people were prosecuted than leaking information during the obama administration than all previous administrations combined. if you look at the history, it appears this out. the same is true of jimmy carter, bill clinton, all three of these presidents promised they would change the secrecy system when they took office, and if you look at the statistics, the data, in every single case after they passed their own executive orders even more information was getting classified every year. you do not have to depend on government estimates as we have so far. you can also look at for example state department cables from the 1970's, we have millions of them now, that have been declassified. we have the metadata because the tax has not been released. you can look at all of those millions of cables and compare the nixon administration, the ford administration, the carter administration, and what i can tell yo

obama's 2008 finance committee. 80% of the money spent on solyndra in that era. virtually all the projects went bankrupt as i detailed the projects that failed. solar, wind solar and wind will largely up junk. they're going to be out there spinning around. nobody's going to want them. if they were halfway sensible and the all projects built huge fields of solar and huge fields of wind turbines, they failed economically. the people kept the money. these obama cronies and the projects are gone. one went to jail. no one was prosecuted for this. and when you put john podesta in of the money, you know, one of my top climate scientists, john, who if you if anyone, read the assange release of emails from podesta, you'll know what kind of an he is. i can guarantee you that money is going to go to friends of john podesta. well for example the white house rolled out plans for stations in the different states, alaska, minnesota they have many charging stations. but as anybody knows, are very, very cold places and battery. the batteries run down to zero in those areas. there

the chinese understand the mindset of the obama biden administration. remember in 2016 at the g20 summit where president obama landed at the beijing to attend the summit, all the world leaders had the chinese and the red carpet they greeted them and had the mobile staircase that went up to the plane, when president obama's plane when air force one landed the chinese mysteriously said we don't have a mobile staircase. what happened obama had to go out of the belly of a plane in a humiliating gesture the chinese did it deliberately this is saving base and forcing the united states to look like were weak and we can't offender quarter and we can't offender skies and therefore the united states is a declining world power, is deliberate on part of the chinese in the biden administration has fallen right into it. maria: it's worse than that, sure it's about embarrassing the united states but at the same time they are stealing intellectual property, they are surveilling american citizens they had tiktok coming out spewing propaganda while also minding americans

chris lew, who ran the transition for president obama, then senator obama, he was a longtime aide to. and he and obama asked him to run the transition and he said what's the transition? so what did he do? he went to jim johnson who ran the transition? mondale and johnson. i've been waiting for someone to call for four years. and he took them to his closet and handed him a box and said, here's all my documents and that was it. so partnership for public service said we're going to actually create a system and records to have lessons learned from presidential transitions and allow future transitions to study the past. so i think that post 911 the experience of the bush administration findings of the 911 commission accelerated focus congress passed a few laws and now there's a hole in history of transition planning. so what has been the worst transition, would you say. it's history yeah in history the trump transition. should we take that one out and so to lincoln for sure during that period of time, seven states seceded. they the buchanan government was paralyzed. half of his cabinet sup

obama's later addresses -- one of obama's later addresses, 2015, he said if he was -- he was going to try to accomplish as much as he could on heat -- on his own. that didn't become a great tagline for the administration it gave ammunition to his opponents of a out-of-control >> members of congress are tweeting ahead of the president's speech. ma gaetz said his sergeant mccosta and served our nation before suffering injuries. met him at walter reed. and congresswoman sell, honored to have mr. thomas curry and his family. the curries lost their home of 50-plus years because of january 5 tornado. i just spoke with him as we prepare for the state of the union. >> the state of the union is strong because you, the american people, are strong. >> president biden delivers the annual state of the union address outlining his priorities. his first state of the union speech since republicans won back control of the house. following the speech governor sanders will give the live response. our free mobile video app or online at c-span dog. >> c-span's "washington journal" we take your calls live o

obama's later addresses -- one of obama's later addresses, 2015, he said if he was -- he was going to try to accomplish as much as he could on heat -- on his own. that didn't become a great tagline for the administration it gave ammunition to his opponents of a out-of-control >> french hill has csen a member of the u.s. commission on ternational religious freedom for his state of the union guest tonight. the story says they served on the commission since 2020. and has been an advocate for religious groups facing persecution and mistreatment with an eensive interest in the uyghur people of china. also, charlotte, north carina, mayor lyles said she's honored to attend the state of the union address a guest of the representative adams. she said rep adams has been a strong supporter of charlotte and our region and grateful for the work gettinfederal funding for residents and overall infrastructure. >> the state of the union is strong because you the american people are strong. >> president biden delivers the annual state of the union address outlining his priorities to congress tonight. h

barack obama weighed dna.in cal barack obama boulevard in california. what how much did he spend a on that? sprea >> no, he saved all his money to buy a spread in hawaii. martha's vineyara'd, evene joe biden the worst president in our entire two hundrersd fifty year history. e? has the president, joseph r. biden, express what he's notve even qualified to drive on it. he shouldn't even have m a driver's license. now,ichell as this point, thereo michelle obama highway. oh, there will b shee this poing she only as a hiking trail known as the michelle obama sk . river path trail. she didn't pay for that. d noidt one dollar you did. michelle obama's hiking trail got nearly foumillion r milliono dollars. your money in the latestcourse t appropriations bill . c and of course, there is famously the robert c. byrd bridge in the robert c. byrd expressway. and you can't have a statue was to abe lincoln. . yo we tore those down. but you can honor the grand kleagle of the kkk. because he was the longest serving democrat in the united states senate. and by the way, n

read barack obama's words again. >> sure. we can't allow people to pour into the united states undetected, undocumented, unchecked and circumventing the lines of people waiting diligently to become immigrants in this country. >> i agree with it. >> jose, you know what president deported more? let me finish, shawn. the president that deported more people at this country than any administration was the obama/biden administration. >> that's exactly right because he executed and let me say this, he did the right thing because he was executing on the current law. i am not saying, if we don't let the actual system, let's change the law. i am all for it. let's change the law. that's got to be done in congress. >> change the law. >> joe, would it be fair to send people home that didn't respect our laws? >> that's why we have a border, i believe. if they're not here seeking an asylum and as we are seeing all these folks in hotels in new york city and it is single men and they are pretty well- well-dressed. enforce the laws in the book

biden, trump and obama. the sense of americans about national government has been on a quick decline. it is interesting to note partisanship is always talked about and we see it in the data. that's a sign of this gradual deterioration of what your previous callers talked about, the country coming together. it is a continuation of this slow decline, consistent decline with americans' level of satisfaction with many facets of life. that's a bipartisan sentiment, with some exceptions. host: let's dig into those differences you alluded to a minute ago. two that jump out from polling is americans' satisfaction with the influence of organized religion among republicans 60% very or somewhat satisfied with the influence of organized religion. just 34% of democrats. you skip to the bottom of what you are seeing on your screen. the size and power of the federal government. 14% of republicans saying they are satisfied with the size and power of the u.s. government. 52% of democrats saying they are very or somewhat sati

>> if you're obama. >> ask away. >> unlike harry, i have never gotten to interview obama. do you pause more than most people? >> not really. that's why he's a bad president. fill in the blanks, obama. fill in your blanks. >> i think -- this is what we needed this week. you're great. >> my impression. i got him laughing. >> all right, harry, what else is on your fallback list? >> chatbox. >> yeah. a.i. >> just like, you know, i haven't interacted with one yet. have you? >> i have played with a.i., open a.i. we had an open a.i. staffer on the program. it's fascinating. why don't we do this? tell us a little bit about what it is and how you feel about it. >> just artificial intelligence and you can interact with it and send it a note and say will you write my college essay so i can get into yale? and will they or will they not understand that it's fake? it's a kind of super plagiarism if you want it to be. on the other hand, as i see the words come out of it, it reminds me of when there's a giant, horrible disaster and the pr language they use to say really sorry about this,

and ultimatelyiclle obama cabeca more effective by planting her white house garden. which i think is a terrific story partly because it seems radical at the time to rip up this beautiful green lawn and plant a vegetable garden. but it was also very retro, the earliest of the white house, presidents often had gardens there, or chickens running around, and even a few of them had cows, some of whom lived in the white house. for the milk. and so, it was a return to tradition. it was not only a message about healthy eating, it was also a message about the politics of food. and michelle understood that, and was a little tentative about jumping into that battle. but ultimately did. and that proved more effective in getting the message out, and the presidents legislation. >> donald trump you right he understood the politics of the dinner table that are than any other president since the kennedys. >> yet. people cannot believe it when i said that. but it is true. he used food in a very shrewd way. i am not sure how well thought out it was. he likes to say that he operated fro