Ep. 538 — President Barack Obama

The Axe Files with David Axelrod

CNN

News

4.6 • 7.7K Ratings

🗓️ 15 June 2023

⏱️ 53 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Since leaving office in 2016, former President Barack Obama has been a careful observer of the ebbs and flows of democracy around the globe, speaking out on the subject and building coalitions through the Obama Foundation. President Obama joined David to talk about the state of democracy at home and abroad, how the economy and technological advances impact politics and polarization, the weaponization of the word woke, race, and his advice to the GOP.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Music
0:06.0	And now, from the University of Chicago Institute of Politics and CNN Audio, the Axfiles, with
0:12.6	your host David Axelrod.
0:19.0	With democracy here and around the world facing multiple challenges and a fraying of our
0:23.5	American community, I thought I'd check in with an old friend who I know remains very
0:27.9	focused on these problems.
0:30.0	Former President Barack Obama, he's made repairing and strengthening democracy a central
0:34.8	focus of the foundation he created after leaving office, and recently produced and appeared
0:39.9	in a Netflix documentary called Working, which gets to some of the root causes of the
0:44.5	alienation people feel from our politics and economy.
0:48.9	One note we had this conversation before the indictment of Obama's successor and he
0:53.4	made plain that he did not want to comment on Donald Trump's travails.
0:58.5	Here's our conversation.
1:00.4	Music
1:07.4	Mr. President, it's good to see you.
1:10.3	It is good to see you Axelrod.
1:11.9	How you been?
1:12.9	Good.
1:13.9	I've been good.
1:14.9	You know, I came down here from New York on a train and it got me thinking about a lot
1:20.8	of memories.
1:22.0	And one of them was the first private plane trip we took to, I don't know if you remember
	...

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