My dream of an Obama talk show has resurfaced with the release, on Friday morning, of the first episode of David Letterman's six-part Netflix series, "My Next Guest Needs No Introduction".
When Letterman asked which hypothetical was worse for the USA, the "diminishment ... of [the] press" by the president or "somebody screwing around with the actual voting process", Obama pointed to a lack of shared basic facts as "one of the biggest challenges". We're operating in completely different information universes. "And that's part of why our politics is so polarized right now". It reminded me a little bit of Bruce Springsteen's current run on Broadway: in a "this is the essence of what I want to do, here I am, take it or leave it" kind of way with no band in the background to rely on. The two also bonded over fatherhood, leading Obama to share an already-viral anecdote about getting up on stage with the late Prince.
"We essentially built what ended up being the most effective political campaign probably in modern political history. So I had a pretty optimistic feeling about it", he said.
The comments were the closest Obama came to addressing American politics during a almost hour-long sitdown with Letterman, which occurred in the fall of 2017. It's unclear whether Letterman and his guests agreed beforehand not to mention the president or not, but if referencing Trump was always off the table, one has to wonder why Letterman chose to focus on the subjects that he did. Obama, like Lewis, ties the march directly to Obama's eventual election as president, saying that without people who were willing to put themselves on the line, we never would have progressed to the point where we could elect a black president.
"You gotta stay in the pocket because I think everybody here knows dads who get out of the pocket".
Good thing Michelle was there! "They're trying stuff that they can't really pull off".
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Letterman concludes the chat with the first guest on his show by telling Obama, "Without a question of a doubt, you are the first president I truly and fully respect". "I did not miss the trappings of the office", Obama told the former "Late Show" host during the hourlong interview.
David Letterman's credentials as a media hipster are no longer limited to the Brooklyn-style beard he has been sporting ever since he left CBS. "I think it's a solvable problem but I think it's one we have to spend a lot of time thinking about". "So, if you called collect, you weren't sure if she was going to accept!"
Letterman then quipped: "I was under the impression that Twitter would be the mechanism by which truth was told around the world". Their talk is interwoven with a field piece Letterman did, in which he walks across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama with Georgia Congressman John Lewis.
"What is happening in America today is a threat not just to our own country but to the planet", Lewis said.
Letterman and Obama talk about the significance of that march, and the legacy Lewis has built.
"We're the only advanced democracy that deliberately discourages people from voting", he said. "Secret Service is in the front, and they're just looking ahead". He launches into a story about running into the then-first daughter at a state dinner at the White House in 2016.
