Former President Barack Obama spoke at Salem State University on September 21, 2026, in a sold-out conversation moderated by historian Doris Kearns Goodwin. Obama urged the audience to reject cynicism, describing it as a threat to democracy and collective action. He also discussed women in leadership, the importance of giving younger generations a greater voice in government, and the challenges created by older leaders holding onto power. The conversation also explored media, journalism, the First Amendment, social media, and the growing role of division in modern politics.
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NewsTranscript
00:00:00Some of you know, I had already won the primary to be the U.S. Senator from Illinois, and
00:00:11John Kerry came out, who was the presidential nominee at the time, and I didn't know John
00:00:19at all, really, but we did a town hall together, and I had gotten some attention by virtue
00:00:27of having won the primary. It was an upset, and it was a crowded field. I was not the
00:00:32favorite, the guy named Barack Hussein Obama. And John, very generously, and it's always
00:00:42been interesting to some of the stories about how I got selected, but decided that I'd be
00:00:48the keynote, this state senator who nobody knew, the keynote speaker for the Democratic
00:00:53National Convention in Boston. And I will say, Doris, that it's not so much that it changed
00:01:02my life. It is good to see everybody. Please give it up for Doris Kearns Goodwin.
00:01:16All right, hooray, hooray. What a privilege it is for all of us to be here with President
00:01:22Barack Obama. This could go on for a while. Let's get started here. Let's do some work.
00:01:31All right. Doris is a tough interrogator. Oh, yeah. Very, very. What a joy it's been
00:01:38for me after spending six days, six decades as an historian carrying on imaginary conversations
00:01:43with the presidents who are no longer alive. I've now got a conversation with the president
00:01:48who's very much alive, a student of history who has shaped history and is continuing to
00:01:52do so. And I think the...
00:01:58So I believe that history provides what we need more than anything right now, because
00:02:03as tough as this time is, we've come through really, really tough times before. The Revolution,
00:02:09the Civil War, the Great Depression, World War II. And each time we not only survived, we endured
00:02:14and we became stronger. And we know what the people at the time did not know. We know the
00:02:19end of their stories. We know the Revolution was won and a republic was born. We know the
00:02:24Civil War ended with the Union restored and emancipation secured. And we know the allies
00:02:29won World War II. So we're experiencing fear and anxiety today because we do not know yet how
00:02:36our story will end. But that fear should be matched by hope, the hope that he always brings,
00:02:41for it is up to us.
00:02:46This is so great to be with him and all of you. But this is what he always says. It's
00:02:51up
00:02:51to us to find and shape the remaining chapters. It's our story. We move forward. And history
00:02:57can be our guide, providing us perspective, lessons, and most importantly, hope. So let us
00:03:02begin. Let's begin with that speech that changed everything. There are moments in American politics
00:03:09when a single speech can change the trajectory of a career. Abraham Lincoln at Cooper Union
00:03:14being a famous example. For you, that moment came at the 2004 Democratic National Convention
00:03:19in Boston. In Boston!
00:03:21It was in Boston. Yeah.
00:03:25When much of the country heard you for the first time. So you've written that your life
00:03:30changed after that night. What changed and how did it change you?
00:03:34Well, first of all, it is great to be back in Massachusetts. And it is fun to be in Salem,
00:03:48you know, flying over. The moon was, you know, out. And the boats were still in the harbor. And
00:03:57it was just spectacular. So, and I owe this state a lot. I owe the people here a lot. And
00:04:05it's always
00:04:06wonderful to come back. And it is great to be with Doris, because Doris has been a dear friend,
00:04:16somebody I've admired for a very long time. Her scholarship helped to inform my presidency. And, you know,
00:04:24as Doris is aware, every once in a while, I'd bring some historians in for lunch or dinner. And I'd
00:04:34say
00:04:34to them, is it always this crazy? And then they'd say, well, actually, and they'd give me citations,
00:04:39and I'd feel a little better that these moments were not unique. So, some of you know, I had already
00:04:52won the
00:04:54primary for — to be the U.S. Senator from Illinois. And John Kerry came out, who was the presidential
00:05:06nominee at the time. And I didn't know John at all, really. But we did a town hall together. And
00:05:12I had gotten
00:05:14some attention by virtue of having won the primary. It was an upset, and it was a crowded field. I
00:05:21was not the
00:05:22favorite, the guy named Barack Hussein Obama. And John, very generously, and it's always been interesting to
00:05:33some of the stories about how I got selected, but decided that I'd be the keynote, this state senator who
00:05:39nobody knew,
00:05:40the keynote speaker for the Democratic National Convention in Boston. And I will say, Doris, that it's not so much
00:05:50that it
00:05:51changed my life. One of the benefits I had — by the time I ran for the United States Senate,
00:06:01I was a grown
00:06:03person who had a family and had lived a life and had taught law. I was fairly well-formed. Sometimes
00:06:13I marvel at
00:06:14folks who are famous at 30, or 20, if they're athletes. And I don't know how I would have handled
00:06:24that. I would have
00:06:26definitely messed it up somehow. But by the time the speech in Boston came around, what had changed me was
00:06:37the process of
00:06:39campaigning in Illinois. Because Illinois is one of the most demographically representative states, if not the most in the Union.
00:06:48Not just in terms of its racial composition, but also because it's urban, rural, suburban. It's north and south. Southern
00:07:02Illinois is actually closer to
00:07:05Louisville and Kentucky than it is to Chicago and is culturally Southern.
00:07:12So the process of driving around — and there were these things for the young people who are here —
00:07:17you may not understand this, but there were these things
00:07:21called maps that actually — you'd have in the passenger seat and you'd unfold and you could never figure out
00:07:30how to fold it back up.
00:07:34And you'd go into these small towns and just start talking to people. You'd go to a fish fry or
00:07:40a VFW hall.
00:07:41And, you know, my district in Chicago was — I was a state legislator. It was a very progressive urban
00:07:52district.
00:07:53But I'd be going into these districts that were 70 percent Republican and culturally very conservative.
00:08:01I'm 95 percent, 96 percent white.
00:08:06And the process of just meeting people and talking to them had given me — that had changed me.
00:08:13Because what that had done, it had confirmed my instinct that people were people.
00:08:22And that if you listened to them and you paid attention to their stories and their struggles and their hopes
00:08:33and what brought them joy,
00:08:35if you could connect with what they hoped for for their families and their enthusiasm over a Friday night football
00:08:45game,
00:08:48that, in fact, we could find common ground and work together.
00:08:53And so that's what was reflected in the speech.
00:08:56And that process of me understanding that had already taken place.
00:08:59Now, last point I'll make on this.
00:09:03What is true is that in 2004, which for some of the students here will seem like an eternity ago,
00:09:13but for you and me seems like yesterday, there existed still a monoculture.
00:09:22And that's a phrase maybe some of you are familiar with.
00:09:27Cable already existed, so we're not that old.
00:09:30There was color television.
00:09:34And there was even this thing called the Internet.
00:09:39But there was a monoculture in the sense that most people still watched the same things.
00:09:49It didn't matter whether you were on the right or the left.
00:09:53You know, certainly it was already starting to splinter compared to what it was like in the 60s and the
00:10:0170s,
00:10:02when there were only three major broadcast stations and everybody was reading the same newspaper.
00:10:10By this time, the media had started to splinter.
00:10:13But there was this still a collective awareness of things that were happening,
00:10:20and people saw them at the same time, and there weren't the same kinds of filters around them.
00:10:28So, I don't know, maybe 35 million people watched my speech, or 40 million people watched my speech.
00:10:38And so the day after that speech, what it made me appreciate was the power of television to shoot you
00:10:51out like a rocket,
00:10:55like you were being shot out of a rocket.
00:10:59And I remember the next day just trying to — one day I could walk on the street, and then
00:11:06the next day I couldn't.
00:11:09And we were scheduled to do an RV tour in Illinois after the convention was over.
00:11:16I remember — and I was really excited because the kids were with us, me, Michelle, Sasha, Malia,
00:11:23and we had some folks, staff on the RV.
00:11:26And we were going to go from small town to small town, and typically we were getting maybe 500 people.
00:11:31They'd be in a park or in a high school gym.
00:11:35And suddenly, right after the speech, you started having, I don't know, like 5,000 — like the whole town
00:11:43would show up.
00:11:44And I remember, you know, Malia would be like, look out the window and she'd,
00:11:50Daddy, what are all those people doing?
00:11:54And Michelle would say, they're here to see your daddy.
00:11:58And Malia was a little surprised why anybody would do that.
00:12:04And my communications director, I remember him saying — the first time we went, we had planned for 500,
00:12:10and the advanced people were calling and saying, you know what, we got a couple thousand people here,
00:12:16so the police are here and they're trying to figure this out.
00:12:19And I looked at Robert Gibbs, who was my communications director, and I said,
00:12:24what the heck's going on? What does this mean?
00:12:26And he looked at me and he said, I think we need a bigger boat.
00:12:33So the power of the media to project back then was powerful in a way that would be hard to
00:12:43duplicate today.
00:12:45And when I'm advising younger people who are trying to get into politics,
00:12:48I have to point out the degree to which I — a lot of — there was a lot of
00:12:56convergence of things
00:12:57that elevated me as quickly as it did onto the national scene.
00:13:02Well, it was a great moment. I mean, I remember watching that speech,
00:13:05and when the skinny little kid with the funny name believed in America,
00:13:08it was an improbable story that you represented.
00:13:11Yeah, I mean, it was a pretty good speech.
00:13:12It was a pretty good speech.
00:13:13I mean, like, you know, I'm not saying that it was a bad speech.
00:13:19Although, when I look at that speech, I look so young to me,
00:13:26I cannot believe y'all ended up voting for me for president.
00:13:31I mean, I look like a baby.
00:13:34I was like, well, look at him. Does he shave yet?
00:13:38You were cute. You were cute.
00:13:39Yeah.
00:13:40So let's figure out what happened since then,
00:13:43because something's happened between that we that you talked about
00:13:46and the us and them we feel now.
00:13:48Teddy Roosevelt warned at the turn of the 20th century,
00:13:50when the Industrial Revolution had shaken up the economy,
00:13:53much like globalization and tech today,
00:13:55when it was the first time you had a huge gap between the rich and the poor,
00:13:58people in the country didn't like the people in the city,
00:14:01people in the West didn't like the people in the East.
00:14:02He warned if we kept thinking of each other as the other
00:14:05rather than as common American citizens, democracy would be in peril.
00:14:09And it seems to me that was the very idea that you rejected in your convention speech
00:14:13when you talked about, you know, we're Americans, we're not red,
00:14:17we're not blue and blue people, et cetera, et cetera.
00:14:19And it worked.
00:14:20So what gives you hope since leaving office now,
00:14:24when you see what's happened in these last year,
00:14:26that we can still recover that extraordinary sense of we,
00:14:30that sense of common citizenship?
00:14:31We need you to give us this hope.
00:14:33Well, look, I, you know, one of the benefits of history is it cures you of nostalgia.
00:14:46Yay for history.
00:14:48Because, yay for history.
00:14:50Now, it reminds you that the themes that we are struggling with today
00:15:02have been a recurring pattern in America.
00:15:06There are certain things baked into our DNA.
00:15:09You know, you look at the, any period in American history.
00:15:15American Revolution.
00:15:16Good job, by the way, Massachusetts.
00:15:18You know, we had a big deal.
00:15:20You know, kind of lit the fire.
00:15:23Got everybody else going with your feisty selves.
00:15:31But there were tensions in this whole experiment.
00:15:38You can argue, I would argue,
00:15:43that the driving motivations around the American Revolution
00:15:48did not begin with the concepts of democracy as we understand them.
00:15:53A lot of the impetus had to do with relatively prosperous
00:15:59and prominent men, because they were men at the time,
00:16:05who basically were annoyed with the crown
00:16:11because it was trying to tax them.
00:16:13And, frankly, the crown wasn't being that unreasonable
00:16:15because it was like, well, you guys keep on moving west
00:16:18and encroaching on Native American lands,
00:16:21and then you want us to protect you.
00:16:23And so there was, there have always been commercial interests involved
00:16:28in America that were at tension with our high ideals.
00:16:33As we all know, the Constitution itself contained things like the Three-Fifths Clause
00:16:38and men without property, even white men without property,
00:16:42weren't part of the, weren't granted the franchise.
00:16:46Women, they liked you, but as long as you were quiet.
00:16:53But, but what comes behind it, right, is this, this impulse as the revolution builds.
00:17:03Thomas Paine, by the way, underrated.
00:17:06Love Thomas Paine.
00:17:07Thomas Paine articulates this idea in Common Sense and a lot of his other writings
00:17:13that is pretty radical, more radical than the founders.
00:17:18John Hancock, by the way, the biggest signature, he was a smuggler, it turns out.
00:17:25I mean, he was bringing in stuff and he was annoyed that the British ships were stopping him.
00:17:33And, and, but behind the commercial interests and the power plays, et cetera,
00:17:39you start getting this idea of, that expresses itself most powerfully
00:17:47in the Declaration of Independence, we're all created equal.
00:17:50And then people like Philip Wheatley, Phyllis Wheatley, a black woman reads it and says,
00:17:59that's a great idea and, and let's run with that.
00:18:03And, and, and the people who made up the Continental Army, you know,
00:18:07who are indentured servants or, or trademen for hire, landless, don't have a lot of clout.
00:18:15They say, you know what, if I'm going to fight, and by the way, I'm not getting paid
00:18:18and there's no heat and the food's terrible and I'm not getting any boots,
00:18:21at least let me get some land and, and let me have a stake in this.
00:18:24And so you get this broadening idea of democracy.
00:18:28And I, I, I say all that because obviously today we are rife with divisions.
00:18:39And our democracy seems broken in so many ways.
00:18:45And the tenor and tone of the times is, is, feels mean-spirited or we're all turned,
00:18:53we've, we've turned inward.
00:18:56We have gone through times like this before.
00:18:59I believe we can get out of them.
00:19:01But I, and, and when I travel around the country today,
00:19:05or I work with the young people that I work with who come from all across the country
00:19:09through the, through the foundation, what you discover is that, in fact,
00:19:16we are not as divided as we seem at the ground level.
00:19:24We're not as divided as our politics or our media would indicate.
00:19:28The loud, noisy, polarized dialogue is in part manufactured for a variety of interests.
00:19:40And when you get on the ground, it turns out people are still treating each other decently
00:19:47and with respect.
00:19:48And the progress that's been made on civil rights or women's rights or LGBTQ rights have,
00:19:55have not been reversed.
00:19:56You know, in, in most places, people strongly, the vast majority of people believe in those things.
00:20:04But the, but what has happened is it feels as if what happens in Washington is so remote from people's
00:20:12realities.
00:20:12Right?
00:20:13And so the task we now have is finding ways to capture what I think is the goodness of people,
00:20:22the, and, and translating that into a politics that's operative, a, a, a, a system that is adapted to the
00:20:33times.
00:20:33And, you know, we can go into what are the ingredients of that.
00:20:38I, I, I will say that the rise of social media and the, the siloing, the information bubbles that we
00:20:49all occupy,
00:20:50so that the reality of somebody who's reading the New York Times is entirely foreign to somebody who's watching Fox
00:20:58News,
00:20:59we're going to have to find ways to bridge that.
00:21:02And we're going to have to create new town squares, essentially, where everybody is having a common dialogue with certain
00:21:11rules.
00:21:11And that becomes even more important as technology accelerates and AI and deep fakes and all kinds of nonsense is
00:21:18coming.
00:21:20I think the other thing, we are going to have to have some structural reforms in our government to make
00:21:27the federal government work.
00:21:31This, this by, this by design, as you know, Doris, by design, decentralizes power.
00:21:41And you can make an argument that the presidency and the executive branch has become too powerful relative to the
00:21:50legislative branch.
00:21:53Maybe the judicial branch, always the least dangerous branch.
00:21:57But, for most of our lifetimes, at least, you had a function in Congress.
00:22:04And you had a somewhat, and you had a, and you had a loyal opposition in the sense that whoever
00:22:15was out of power was still interested in getting things done.
00:22:20And was still following certain norms and institutional practices that allowed government to deliver.
00:22:30And I think that, in addition to this challenge of how we're getting our information, which right now is making
00:22:38us all fearful of each other,
00:22:40we have to redesign how the federal government at least works so that it can actually get stuff done.
00:22:50And I'll give you one example that plagued me during my presidency.
00:22:56And even during my presidency, I was convinced we needed to get rid of it, is the practice of the
00:23:03filibuster, which is not in the Constitution.
00:23:05It is a practice that was adopted almost by accident by the Senate, and then exploited, but mildly exploited, mainly,
00:23:18frankly, by Dixiecrats to prevent civil rights legislation from getting through.
00:23:25So Southern Democrats were some of the worst practitioners of the filibuster, but it was rarely used.
00:23:32By the time I got to office, and Mitch McConnell, who was the Senate leader on the Republican side when
00:23:40the Republicans took control of the Senate in 2010,
00:23:47essentially just rewrote the Constitution so that you had to have a supermajority to get anything through the Senate.
00:23:58And what happens there is people start getting very cynical if they elect somebody who seems idealistic and has a
00:24:07great plan, and then suddenly it just hits a wall.
00:24:11And that happens again and again and again.
00:24:14After a certain point, people feel like, well, nobody's listening to me.
00:24:19And that cynicism, which also is fed by the media, is the thing that is robbing us of our capacity
00:24:25to feel hopeful or to work together.
00:24:28And we used to have stickers in my White House that my chief of staff, Dennis McDonough, put together.
00:24:35It just said, fight cynicism, because that is the enemy of democracy.
00:24:40You know, and one of the things we have to remember...
00:24:43Yes, indeed.
00:24:46One of the things we have to remember that there can be changes in these situations.
00:24:50I mean, one of the things John Kennedy said is problems created by man can be solved by man, or
00:24:54maybe solved by woman, as we get to these things.
00:24:57Or woman.
00:24:58More likely to be solved by women.
00:25:00More likely.
00:25:01Yay!
00:25:04But that fights the cynicism.
00:25:06I mean, we have to do something about campaign finance.
00:25:08We have to do something maybe about the Electoral College.
00:25:10We may have to do something about political gerrymandering.
00:25:13But we can do these things.
00:25:14We have to believe that we have a majority that wants to do these things.
00:25:16And then we can move forward.
00:25:18That's correct.
00:25:18That's the hope.
00:25:19That's you.
00:25:20Coming back.
00:25:20Well, no, no, no.
00:25:22That's prohibited.
00:25:27But it's interesting you mentioned the woman thing.
00:25:32Even when I was president, I sometimes fantasized about if you put women in charge of every government for like
00:25:47two years, and then just kind of saw, all right, how are things going?
00:25:54I have a strong belief that things would — they wouldn't be perfect.
00:26:01But they'd be better.
00:26:02But they'd be better.
00:26:03They'd be better.
00:26:06I'm confident about that.
00:26:07I really do.
00:26:09So, I — well, let's move on.
00:26:17I love it.
00:26:18I don't want to move on.
00:26:19I'll stay with it.
00:26:20So, one of the ways when you were in the White House, you kept in touch with people because you
00:26:25didn't have the same relationship you had when you were campaigning on the field was by these letters that you
00:26:30would read every night before you went to bed.
00:26:32Tell us about that and what you learned from the citizens that way.
00:26:35And why did you do it late at night?
00:26:37Well, so, one of the things that changes when you become president, which you do not — it is impossible
00:26:47to prepare for or fully understand until it happens.
00:26:53Now, it creeps up on you for, you know, I think reasons that were pretty well documented.
00:27:05I got Secret Service earlier than any candidate for the presidency had ever gotten.
00:27:12I was getting a lot more threats.
00:27:15And so, I got accustomed to Secret Service, which was weird because they follow you around and they're standing outside
00:27:23the bathroom and, you know.
00:27:27But, all right, I kind of figured this out.
00:27:30And then when I won the nomination, at every stage of the campaign process, it got more and more restrictive.
00:27:42And you'd be in a hotel and suddenly they would have put up, you know, curtains in front of all
00:27:49the windows.
00:27:50And so, all the poor other guests who were trying to work out, they're just staring at these black, you
00:27:57know, blackout screens.
00:28:02And every once in a while, I would just say, to heck with it, and I'd go off to, like,
00:28:07get a taco.
00:28:08And you could hear people saying, you know, he's loose.
00:28:19But I say all that because the most valuable lessons I learned from campaigning were conversations.
00:28:31Interactions with people that were not mediated by a bunch of fuss.
00:28:36You just walked into a diner.
00:28:37You sat down.
00:28:38You started talking to folks.
00:28:40You'd introduce yourself first.
00:28:41You wouldn't just sit down because that would be rude.
00:28:48And what I would learn about people's day-to-day struggles, right?
00:28:53You know, lost a job.
00:28:55Worrying about health insurance.
00:28:57Child care is terrible.
00:29:01But also things that worked, right?
00:29:04You know, I went to this community college and it gave me a great training.
00:29:09And I've got a trade.
00:29:10And I just bought my first house.
00:29:12And, you know, my wife's a nurse.
00:29:14And so you'd had these interactions.
00:29:17Those became more and more restricted.
00:29:20And by the time you get into the presidency, everybody's coming to you.
00:29:29And obviously, you know, they're a little nervous when they show up in the Oval Office or on the South
00:29:36Lawn.
00:29:38And so I asked my team, I said, I think we got something at the time like 40,000 pieces
00:29:47of communication.
00:29:49Letter, email, a day.
00:29:53A day?
00:29:54A day.
00:29:55So, and we had this, you have an entire office devoted to answering letters.
00:30:04And we had these wonderful folks, and there was this great young woman who had volunteered on the campaign and
00:30:13worked her way up.
00:30:14And she became in charge of answering all these letters.
00:30:18And people would, you'd get volunteers who would come and help just answer mail.
00:30:22And I said, let's pull out 10 letters every day for me to read, put them in a folder.
00:30:32It was a purple folder.
00:30:34And I don't want you to just, I don't need to just, oh, Mr. President.
00:30:39How great you are.
00:30:40You're fantastic.
00:30:42And, man, you know, you're really good looking.
00:30:46And, you know, and, well, no, no, I wasn't fishing for that.
00:30:54You've got a great smile.
00:30:56My point is, I didn't want to, I didn't want some just artificial thing.
00:31:02I said, I want this to be representative at any given time of what all these 40,000 letters.
00:31:09See if there are 10 letters a day that kind of represent the mood.
00:31:13And they did a great job.
00:31:15And I'd get these letters and, you know, many of them are now, we have a whole exhibit and a
00:31:24video that was made of these letters at the presidential center.
00:31:27I have to go past that exhibit.
00:31:29I start tearing up when I see them because, you know, sometimes somebody would just say, Mr. President, here's my
00:31:41monthly budget.
00:31:43Here's how much I make.
00:31:45Here's what it costs me to pay rent.
00:31:49Here's what it costs for me for childcare, food.
00:31:53Here's what I have left over.
00:31:56How do I, how do you expect me to be able to make it?
00:32:01And I'm working full time.
00:32:03Or somebody might write to me and say, you know, Mr. President, I generally think you're an idiot.
00:32:16But I really appreciate how you seem to make time for your family.
00:32:21And, you know, it reminds me as a dad that if, as busy as you are, you can still go
00:32:27to your daughter's basketball game.
00:32:30I should make time, too.
00:32:34Or, you know, dear Mr. President, I'm a young Syrian refugee, and I've just arrived here.
00:32:45And it's a very nice country, and the people are treating me really well.
00:32:50And I really like the food, especially pizza, very nice.
00:32:56And, but, but what you get, and then there were, there'd be kids who'd send me stuff like, why don't
00:33:03you pass the law with no homework?
00:33:06But, but what it did was, it gave, it was the best I could do to approximate what I had
00:33:14gotten before.
00:33:15And, and stay out of the bubble, and remind myself every day, when you're under these enormous stresses and strains,
00:33:24that the purpose of being there was not the pomp, and the circumstance, and the exercises of power, and policy
00:33:35debates, and beating your political opponents.
00:33:40Like, there were these people out there who sent you there, because they, they're trying to figure out how to
00:33:45pay for their groceries.
00:33:48And, and that helped shape the mentality, right, my, my sensibility in terms of how I was approaching the job.
00:33:59And remembering the purpose for which you'd come.
00:34:01Correct.
00:34:01You know, one of the things that FDR said when he was creating the first public library for the presidency
00:34:06was that he cared more about the citizens' letters
00:34:08than the letters of state.
00:34:10Yes.
00:34:10In fact, one of the letters that I loved came from a man, it was just at the height of
00:34:13the depression,
00:34:14he was about to give his inaugural, he'd given the inaugural, and the man wrote back,
00:34:18oh, he said, my roof has fallen off, my wife is mad at me, our dog has run away, and
00:34:22I've lost my job, but now everything's all right, you're there.
00:34:25So he loved that letter.
00:34:26Well, I'll bet he did.
00:34:29My favorite story about an FDR letter, I was lucky enough to get to know fairly well.
00:34:38Towards the end of her life, Toni Morrison, the great novelist.
00:34:48And, and we actually corresponded some.
00:34:50So I've got some letters from her, which are.
00:34:54That's pretty cool.
00:34:55They're very cool.
00:34:58And I remember one letter she wrote to me, and she was describing how much of what we're talking about
00:35:09here, how it is that it's so easy for people in power to lose touch.
00:35:16But if people in power are intentional about trying to stay in touch, they can.
00:35:21So she describes a letter that her mother sent during the Depression to FDR.
00:35:31At the time, they were giving away food, and apparently some of the cheese that was at the federal food
00:35:45bank that had been set up in their town,
00:35:47and had some worms in it, had gone bad.
00:35:55And so Toni Morrison's mother, black woman of no considerable rank or station, writes a letter to FDR and says,
00:36:08Mr. President, we appreciate you trying to make the effort here, but you need to know this cheese is bad.
00:36:17And Toni says that not only did FDR write back to her and say, dear, I'm not sure if Toni
00:36:27Morrison's mother was Ms. Morrison, but let's assume it is.
00:36:29Dear Ms. Morrison, thank you for bringing this to my attention. Apologize. We're going to fix this.
00:36:37And in fact, the cheese that was being given out was fixed.
00:36:44Now that's, that is an example of if government's doing that, if it's just, it's not that it has to
00:36:57get it perfect,
00:36:58but if it's communicating that it's paying attention and it is working on problems that matter to people,
00:37:10then that ripples throughout society.
00:37:15And it creates a health, a virtuous cycle in which now people want to vote and want to get involved
00:37:22because they see something concrete happening.
00:37:24And when the reverse happens, when it just feels like nobody's listening.
00:37:28Well, that's when they get attracted to, how shall I put it?
00:37:35Go for it. Do it.
00:37:37Less constructive politicians.
00:37:46Less constructive, uh, and, and, and, and sometimes dangerous, uh, um, ideologies.
00:37:56I mean, speaking of danger, what did you think about the president's recent banning of CNN and Politico and MS?
00:38:03Well, I, look, can, can I say this though?
00:38:05This is what I meant about a loyal opposition.
00:38:09Um, it is not only, uh, normal, but proper for us to have debates, sometimes really tough debates,
00:38:26about, uh, uh, the collective course of this, of this country.
00:38:32We, we should have debates about tax policy.
00:38:35We, we should have debates about, um, I don't think we should have debates about whether the planet is warming,
00:38:42but we can have debates about how to, uh, approach the fact that the planet is warming.
00:38:52Um, we can have debates about what is the right balance that we should strike between, uh, our interests in
00:39:01security
00:39:01and protecting our civil liberties and our privacy.
00:39:05Um, we, we should have a very robust debate right now about AI and how do we weigh benefits versus
00:39:14risks.
00:39:15Uh, and so, so we, this country has never agreed, uh, uniformly with everything.
00:39:25Um, but there are some foundational creeds.
00:39:35Some, some, some, some, some bedrock truths that are, makes us who we are, that make us American.
00:39:47And the free press is one of those.
00:39:49And the free press, the idea that the government cannot discriminate against
00:40:03or pick on or bully or exclude somebody because they don't like the criticism that's being leveled at them.
00:40:14That is a foundational issue.
00:40:17And, and so, I am not surprised that the current president wants to ban, uh, newscasts that are critical of
00:40:37him because he's that guy.
00:40:43It amuses me, by the way, look, we, we can talk about wokeness, but remember when everybody's like,
00:40:52why is it, you know, these minorities and women are being so sensitive and, and I'm happy to weigh in
00:40:59on some of those issues.
00:40:59I, I do think sometimes, uh, the strategies behind, uh, what became term wokeness were not always designed to bring
00:41:10people together and, and actually advance the cause.
00:41:13But, you know, the Republicans used to say, you, you can't, uh, you want to silence everybody because some students
00:41:23were protesting.
00:41:24Or, this is the president of the United States can't take some criticism.
00:41:31And, I'm not surprised by his reaction, the fact that you do not have a, as far as I can
00:41:40tell, any substantial group of Republicans who are standing up and saying,
00:41:47no, you can't do that because we don't want, if there's a Democratic president to be banning Fox News or,
00:41:57you know, whatever other outlets, uh, that are going off on Democratic presidents.
00:42:06It, it's, you can't do that for, and, and say that you are still living in a democracy.
00:42:14That, that, that's foundational.
00:42:16When I was president, we used to push other countries not to do this.
00:42:23Part of, if I went on a, if I was meeting with the Chinese or the Russians or anybody, I
00:42:34would be championing, you can't imprison journalists.
00:42:37You can't exclude them.
00:42:39You can't choose a state organ that delivers your propaganda and your messaging nonstop.
00:42:52And, and, and, and so, um, this should not be a partisan issue.
00:42:59I want to, I want to underscore this.
00:43:02This should be something that rises above partisanship.
00:43:10And, and so I was very happy, uh, I, I was very happy to see, um, today that, uh, the
00:43:19other broadcast networks had said, well, we're just not gonna send our reporters or our cameras to cover you either,
00:43:27Mr. President.
00:43:27You know, see how you like that.
00:43:30And, um, and that's the report, that's the appropriate response.
00:43:37By the way, I wish that that had been the response at the beginning of this administration's term with respect
00:43:44to universities and law firms.
00:43:45I think there was a tendency, there, there was, there was, there was a lack of solidarity around basic principles
00:44:00and folks got picked off, um, and cowered into, uh, betraying what should be some pretty basic core ideals.
00:44:10Um, but, but this one, this one's actually in the Constitution.
00:44:15You know, it's, it's, it's pretty, it's pretty straightforward, right?
00:44:19Free, free speech, that, there's a reason why it's the First Amendment.
00:44:26Yeah?
00:44:27It, it, it's the one they're all like, no, no, that one we gotta get right.
00:44:30And, and, and, uh, last point I will make.
00:44:35Uh, this, this will not be sustained by the courts.
00:44:39Uh, uh, my suspicion is even judges who, um, who were appointed by this president will not, uh, be able
00:44:53to uphold a ban like this.
00:44:57This is, this is, I taught constitutional law.
00:44:59This is kind of textbook.
00:45:01Um, I mean, if I gave this on a, on an exam, you don't even really need to go to
00:45:08law school.
00:45:09It's just like, no, no, you can't do that one.
00:45:13Uh, so, so, but the issue is not the fact that, uh, it ultimately will be overturned.
00:45:25The issue is the brazenness with which any president could act like this.
00:45:31And the people in his or her own party would not say, no, you cannot do that.
00:45:41That's not acceptable.
00:45:42That lack of guardrails is what I'm most concerned about.
00:45:48In, in fact, just last night I was reading from old Tom Jefferson, and he said, were it left to
00:45:53me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate
00:46:00a moment to prefer the latter.
00:46:02It is foundational, as you said, but, but let's think of something else foundational, which is the library that you've
00:46:07just built.
00:46:08I was so excited to be there.
00:46:09Not as important as the First Amendment, but a really nice place to visit.
00:46:13A great place to visit.
00:46:15Check it out.
00:46:15Great place to visit.
00:46:15Okay, so what I love are the words that you put on the library.
00:46:19Tell us about what those words are and how it relates to Selma, which is one of the foundational events
00:46:24in our lives, if I'm convinced.
00:46:26Well, so we just opened up the Presidential Center.
00:46:31You're all welcome to visit.
00:46:32Right now it's a little hard to get tickets, but presumably things will smooth out.
00:46:42And, yeah, the lines at the merch store are really crowded, too, so you can buy stuff online.
00:46:47Just wanted to let you know that.
00:46:50But, look, look, the intention of the Presidential Center was to serve the mission of the Obama Foundation, which is
00:46:59to train the next generation of leaders.
00:47:01And we used the excuse of a Presidential Library to really build a campus around how do you advance social
00:47:09change in a positive, constructive way, and how do you develop leadership.
00:47:15Because I do not believe leaders are, I think people can be born with gifts, but true leadership can come
00:47:30in many forms.
00:47:32And so we work with people from all across the country and across the world from, you know, high school
00:47:41students all the way up to folks who are 35 or 40 who are leaders in their fields but are
00:47:48doing extraordinary work.
00:47:49And so we want this to be a hub around that activity.
00:47:55And there's a big tower in the middle of the campus.
00:48:01On it, the architects had the idea of taking an excerpt from the speech I gave in Selma on the
00:48:1350th anniversary of the March on Selma.
00:48:18To sort of embody what the foundation was about and what the campus was about.
00:48:25And this is actually, it may not be the best speech that I've delivered during my presidency.
00:48:33It is in some ways my favorite.
00:48:36I think you care about it the most.
00:48:38Yeah, it's the one that's most representative of what I believe about America, because most of you obviously know the
00:48:47history.
00:48:49But what the speech during that anniversary essentially communicates is that the clash of forces on that bridge, the Edmund
00:49:01Pettus Bridge in Selma,
00:49:03where you've got kids like John Lewis, unarmed with a backpack and a book and an apple in the backpack
00:49:13because he's anticipating he's going to prison.
00:49:15And maids and college students and freedom riders who had come down from the north and members of clergy, some
00:49:28priests and rabbis who were participating.
00:49:33But mostly just ordinary folks.
00:49:36And on the other side, you've got folks on horseback and the power of the state represented by billy clubs
00:49:45and whips and dogs.
00:49:51And I said in the speech, I said, this is as important as Lexington and Concord and Gettysburg and Appomattox.
00:50:04It speaks to a constant struggle in our nation's history.
00:50:12And that is, do we mean what we say when we say we the people?
00:50:20Do we believe in citizenship and do we believe in that that includes everyone and not just some?
00:50:29Do we truly reject caste and hierarchy in all its forms, whether it's racism or anti-Semitism or sexism?
00:50:44Or do we want to retain those elements of rank and status that presumably we had fought a revolution to
00:50:55reject?
00:50:59And it was in response, frankly, to some commentary that Rudy Giuliani and some others had been around this time
00:51:06talking about who were real Americans and who weren't, which got me annoyed.
00:51:14And so I decided, you know what, this is a good moment, occasion, to go right at this.
00:51:21And my argument was that the essence of a real American has nothing to do with your last name, your
00:51:34ethnic origins.
00:51:35It has to do, do you believe in this precious idea of we the people?
00:51:46And that's a struggle that is still taking place today.
00:51:49I mean, so many of our arguments right now are about that.
00:51:55And the good news, this is where I am hopeful, for all the yelling and hollering and the nastiness and
00:52:04the meanness that we see.
00:52:07You know, for the vast majority of Americans, I actually think most Americans embrace that idea more fully than they
00:52:22ever have before.
00:52:24More fully than they did when I was a kid, certainly more fully than, you know, even, you know, the
00:52:3550s or the 60s, when a lot of times we nostalgize and think like, oh, things were so great back
00:52:40then.
00:52:41But actually, it was severely limited for a lot of people.
00:52:50And so that's the good news.
00:52:51The bad news is, is that I think precisely because more and more people have embraced that idea, there is
00:52:57this rearguard action of people who want to get back to, no, you know, I'm here and you're there.
00:53:04And that's whether I'm qualified to be here or not, I'm here anyway, whether I know what I'm talking about
00:53:14or not, I'm here anyway, whether I, whether I just inherited being here or not.
00:53:26Well, okay. There are people who want to reassert that and feel threatened by the idea that, no, this is
00:53:35open to everybody.
00:53:37Everybody who works hard, everybody who, you know, respects other people, everybody who knows how to get stuff done, everybody
00:53:48who's got an idea that they want to, you know, build on.
00:53:53Everybody who's willing to really sacrifice for their families and look after their kids.
00:54:02That's, that's for everybody. That's not just for some.
00:54:06So that's what's on the building. And I'm glad it is. I'm glad it's there.
00:54:10Me too. And I think as we approach the 250th anniversary, what's important to remember is that the citizens are
00:54:16what we've always depended upon.
00:54:17Change has always come from the ground up.
00:54:19I mean, when Lincoln was called a liberator, he said, don't call me that. It was the anti-slavery movement
00:54:23and the union soldiers that did it.
00:54:25Progressive movement was in the settlement houses in the cities before Teddy Roosevelt took over.
00:54:30The union movement was critical. Civil rights movement, women's movement, gay rights movement. It's always the people. It's up to
00:54:35us.
00:54:36And I think that's what you're talking about. That's the key to the future.
00:54:39That's exactly right.
00:54:40These young kids out here have to be it for us.
00:54:42And that's why that's exactly right. That's the basic thesis of the entire presidential center, is that it doesn't work
00:54:56if citizens don't embrace their own agency.
00:54:59Now, we can encourage it or discourage it. We can cultivate it or we can try to squash it.
00:55:09But it keeps coming up.
00:55:11There is something in the human spirit that says, hey, I count. I matter. But we've got a lot of
00:55:22distractions that are arrayed around us and, most importantly, in our hip pockets right now that make us feel helpless.
00:55:35What do you mean in our hip pockets?
00:55:37Phones.
00:55:38Oh.
00:55:40You know, and scrolling. And I, look, I like a good, you know, cute animal video as much as anybody.
00:55:56But so much of what we, you know, there was a book that was referring to television, but applies now
00:56:12more than ever, and will continue to apply more than ever, of amusing ourselves to death.
00:56:19Right? That we have a vast commercial enterprise to distract us and to oftentimes divide us because it turns out
00:56:37our brains are activated when we're angry or resentful or it taps into the reptilian side of our brain in
00:56:47ways that we're all prey to.
00:56:51But this idea of citizenship and agency, as you just pointed out, it's the reason why in the exhibits in
00:56:57our museum, do not start with me.
00:57:00The first thing you see is a copy of the Declaration of Independence. And the first exhibits are about abolition
00:57:09and suffragists.
00:57:11Love the pen and the Frederick Douglass.
00:57:14Yeah. Yeah, the curators did a great job finding artifacts that are remarkable.
00:57:22But essentially, we're telling a story about what you just said, Doris, which is politicians typically follow. They don't lead.
00:57:35Now, it's important for us to harness energies that have been unleashed and to try to institutionalize them and codify
00:57:49them into laws.
00:57:49So I wouldn't have gone into politics if I did not believe it could be a noble profession.
00:57:57But the spark, it never starts from inside the White House or even Congress.
00:58:08You know, you look at you mentioned the progressive movement. Jane Addams starts these settlement houses to deal with all
00:58:19these immigrants.
00:58:21You know, Irish and Italian and German and Polish immigrants who are flooding into Chicago.
00:58:30And she said, look at the conditions they're living in.
00:58:33And why don't we set up systems in which we're giving people aid and teaching kids and helping folks get
00:58:45on their feet and become self-sustaining?
00:58:48And that doesn't originate in some law that was passed.
00:58:54People on the ground are doing it.
00:58:56And when they start doing it and it grows, suddenly the politicians catch up.
00:59:09Eventually, Teddy Roosevelt caught up or FDR caught up.
00:59:12But that's where Johnson caught up.
00:59:17And even Lincoln.
00:59:18As much as I revere Lincoln, it is important to see the degree to which he was continually pushed over
00:59:28and over again by circumstances.
00:59:29And what made him great was his capacity to look squarely at what was happening and open his mind and
00:59:39say, you know what?
00:59:41Actually, this is what is now required at this moment.
00:59:45I thought it was this, but now it's this.
00:59:49It's not because he got it right immediately, but he always maintained that belief that if you're paying attention to
00:59:57the people and listening to what they're trying to do, not just the bad things that are happening, but the
01:00:02good things that are happening, that is what will power progress and lead us out of some of the holes.
01:00:08So right. I mean, when you think about Selma, actually, what preceded Selma were decades of civil rights movement, the
01:00:17Freedom Riders and the sit-ins movement and marches and marches.
01:00:21And then finally, the conscience of the country was aroused once they saw the footage of what had happened.
01:00:25They knew that was wrong.
01:00:27One of the things Johnson said, if you see something that's so indecent, people will react.
01:00:31Seventy eight percent of the people were for voting rights after that speech.
01:00:34Well, and we saw it.
01:00:35And that's what could happen now.
01:00:37And we saw a recent example of it in Minnesota.
01:00:40The people of Minneapolis mobilized themselves, organized themselves in pretty harrowing situations.
01:00:54And it's bitter cold.
01:00:56And you have neighbors setting up committees and systems to deliver groceries to families and to document what was happening.
01:01:09And when people had been detained, oftentimes mistakenly or falsely, they'd be there at these detention centers because it's the
01:01:17middle of winter.
01:01:17And they had been snatched out without a coat.
01:01:20And citizens organized themselves to be at those detention centers so that when people were released after being incorrectly held,
01:01:31somebody was there with a coat and a ride for them home.
01:01:36And what that did was it created an awareness.
01:01:51And they set a moral example whereby even people who wanted tougher immigration enforcement looked at that and said, well,
01:02:04no, we didn't mean that.
01:02:05That's not that's not that's not what we're talking about.
01:02:09And so that that's a recent example that we've seen of the of the power of the citizenry.
01:02:18You know, and sometimes it doesn't always work, but you keep at it.
01:02:23And that's where my faith comes in, is that thing in the human spirit.
01:02:28When it's activated in citizens, even at very local levels, it wakes up other people's consciousness.
01:02:41So I knew when we started that we would not end before we had hope from this great character.
01:02:46Yeah, you've got to get some hope out.
01:02:47You've got to get that hope.
01:02:49So there's one final question.
01:02:51Yes.
01:02:52We've got to go soon.
01:02:53This is terrible.
01:02:54We do.
01:02:54We do.
01:02:55But anyways.
01:02:55I could talk to Doris forever.
01:02:57I could talk to you forever.
01:02:58Well, let's keep going.
01:02:59But I know.
01:03:01I think the pilots are unrestricted.
01:03:04There's a tradition in this series I've heard that you always have to ask the current speaker, you, who should
01:03:09be the next Salem State Series Speaker?
01:03:14Well, at some point you should probably get Michelle, because she's better than I am.
01:03:24But you may want to have a little separation there, not just back to back, because the contrast will be
01:03:38so stark that people will be like, why do we bother with him?
01:03:47You know, I think it'd be interesting to have Pope Leo around, but he's a White Sox fan, so I'm
01:03:56interested in that.
01:03:59Could we get you to interview him?
01:04:01That would be fun, actually.
01:04:04But truthfully, my main suggestion, I will give you what you should be having.
01:04:11I'm very big right now on getting folks who are younger than me.
01:04:18Getting younger voices out there, giving them platforms, I think, is really important.
01:04:26Identifying this generation of leaders as opposed to past generations of leaders.
01:04:31This generation of thinkers, rather than those who still have a lot of wisdom, but are not as attuned to
01:04:41the moment.
01:04:42Because I think that we — one of the challenges we face globally is old men clinging to power.
01:05:01And they're afraid — and I say men very deliberately — they're afraid of irrelevance and death.
01:05:16And this has been a theme of humanity since its inception.
01:05:25And don't encourage it.
01:05:27So, you know, get younger folks and or young — but also speaking to the moral challenges that we face
01:05:46right now.
01:05:47We have big policy challenges.
01:05:53AI is a big policy challenge that we need to get right.
01:05:56Climate change is still a big policy challenge that we need to get right.
01:05:59Income inequality and wealth inequality and making the economic system work for everyone, not just a few, is still a
01:06:07big priority.
01:06:10But underlying all that, I think there is a — what people are starved for at the moment is the
01:06:19ability to tell
01:06:20a moral and ethical story about how we live together in this moment.
01:06:27And I think one of the mistakes that — I'll just say Democrats and some on the left made for
01:06:34a while — was making everything mechanical and instrumental and materialistic about tax policy and earned income tax credits.
01:06:45All that stuff is important, but there's an underlying moral foundation to how do we see each other and treat
01:06:56each other that so often came out of the church or the synagogue or temple or mosque.
01:07:04All that's religious traditions, and not everybody participates in organized religion in those same ways.
01:07:11But the essential questions around that — our leaders have to be able to speak that language in a serious
01:07:22way, in an earnest way.
01:07:26All right, I've got to get out of here.
01:07:28Okay, so let me just say we're ending, but as we end, if the story is going to be told
01:07:33of President Obama, I think it'll not just be what you did, which was remarkable, but who you are.
01:07:38And what really matters is the integrity and the humility and the resilience and the empathy, all of which means
01:07:44your character.
01:07:45You're wicked smart, as we'd say in Boston, but even more important is your character, and I'm honored to be
01:07:51talking to you tonight.
01:07:52Thank you, everybody. Great to talk to you, Selma.
01:07:55You were great.
01:07:56That was good.
01:07:59That was great.
01:08:00That was great.
01:08:00That was great.
01:08:00That was great.
01:08:14That was great.