Pete Souza opens up about why working for both the Obama and Reagan administrations gives him a unique perspective on the presidency. Plus, he revealed what photo he thinks best describes Donald Trump's presidency.
00:00During my eight years as the chief official White House photographer for the Obama administration,
00:06I documented all the important moments of his presidency.
00:10This documentary details your experiences working for both the Reagan administration
00:14and the Obama administration.
00:16Why do you think working for two different administrations
00:19gives you such a unique perspective on the office of the president?
00:23I think I worked for the most iconic Republican
00:26and arguably the most iconic Democrat president of my generation.
00:33And I think that it demonstrates that the way I'm speaking out
00:38about what's happening today is not a partisan thing.
00:42It's about the office of the presidency
00:44and the respect and dignity that the person who holds that office should have.
00:53And I think having been inside both a Republican and a Democrat administration,
00:59I think I can come at this from a more of a nonpartisan view.
01:06I thought, who is this man?
01:07How does he deal with the crisis?
01:09Leadership, character, and empathy.
01:14Don't you wish we had that now?
01:15Now, in the documentary, it mentions one part about how,
01:19you know, before Obama walked into a room,
01:21you were always the person to walk in first.
01:23What did that always feel like for you?
01:25You know, I would.
01:26I'd be, you know, a minute or so or 30 seconds or so in front of the president.
01:30And especially when we were walking into the Situation Room.
01:33And, you know, he was inevitably a few minutes late.
01:37And so people were chit-chatting.
01:39And, you know, you could hear that as I walked in the door.
01:42And all of a sudden, it would just stop.
01:44Because they knew that when they saw me, that he was right behind me.
01:48So it was, it got to be amusing towards the end, you know, because people would say,
01:56oh, Pete's here.
01:58Like, and then, you know, and so the conversation would just stop.
02:02Pete Souza is getting attention online with replies to President Trump's tweets.
02:06I had to speak out.
02:07I knew how the job should be done.
02:09Is there a photo that has been taken or a photo that needs to be taken that would best represent Trump's presidency?
02:14I mean, the one picture from the White House photographer that I would consider authentic and behind the scenes and storytelling
02:27is a picture that became public because Donald Trump tweeted it out because he thought it made him look good.
02:37And it was a picture of the breakup of a meeting where Nancy Pelosi was standing in the cabinet room, pointing her finger at him.
02:47And, which is interesting that he thought it made him look good or Nancy looked bad.
02:54And I think the vast majority of anyone that looks at that photograph says that's a badass Speaker of the House standing up to the President of the United States.
03:10The presidency is a serious job.
03:14And I was going to do everything I could to make sure people didn't forget that.
03:18Now, given that you do know Joe Biden, if he was to win the presidency and he reached out to you and asked you to come and work for him, would you do it?
03:27He is as compassionate and empathetic as a man that I know.
03:31But I have to say, you know, I put so much into the eight years of the Obama administration and essentially had no personal life.
03:40You know, I just don't think I can put my family through that again.
03:44But I will call Joe Biden after the election and I will urge him to allow the kind of access that I had with President Obama to whoever his White House photographer is.
03:59The job as the chief official White House photographer is to visually document the presidency for history.
04:04What do you hope viewers take away from this documentary?
04:07I hope they take away the power of the still image, especially as it relates to the behind-the-scenes moment of a presidency.
04:21But also that they look at the presidency with this thought in mind.
04:30What kind of a person do we want representing us at the highest levels of government?
04:35And just so, you know, think about that before you mark your ballot.
04:40If you just stacked up the images of the Obama presidency and the Trump presidency, you would see the two stories of America in the starkest possible contrast.
04:48If there was a movie to be made about your life, what actor would you love to play you?
04:52Well, there is a movie that's made about my life and I, you know, and I'm in it.
04:57So, I mean, you know, George Clooney, I guess.
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