Senior adviser to President Obama (2009-2017) - Valerie Jarrett
The Interview
BBC
4.3 • 537 Ratings
🗓️ 19 June 2019
⏱️ 25 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
How much responsibility should team Obama take for the course American politics has taken since they left centre-stage? HARDtalk’s Stephen Sackur speaks to Valerie Jarrett, former advisor to President Obama. It is one of the great puzzles of American politics: how voters could make history by putting Barack Obama in the White House – twice – and then elect Donald Trump as his successor. Valerie Jarrett is a close friend and adviser to Barack and Michelle Obama from early days in Chicago, all the way through the White House years. How will historians view the Obama legacy?
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | You're listening to a podcast from the BBC World Service. This is Hard Talk with me, Stephen Sacker. |
| 0:07.0 | Thanks for downloading this edition of the program. I do hope you enjoy it. |
| 0:12.3 | Welcome to Hard Talk on the BBC World Service with me, Stephen Sacker. My guest today was perhaps the closest friend of and advisor to Barack and Michelle Obama during their eight years in the White House. |
| 0:26.9 | Valerie Jarrett has described herself as something like a big sister to them both in a relationship which began in Chicago in 1991, |
| 0:35.6 | when Jarrett, then a senior lawyer in the mayor's office, interviewed 26-year-old |
| 0:41.2 | Michelle Robinson for a job. Very soon, Barack Obama had married Michelle and picked Valerie to be a key |
| 0:49.4 | player on his political team as he rose from the Illinois State House to the U.S. Senate and then |
| 0:55.8 | remarkably to the White House. During the eight years of the Obama presidency, Jarrett was the most |
| 1:02.1 | trusted of senior advisors whose unparalleled access to the president occasionally ruffled |
| 1:08.2 | feathers within the White House hierarchy. |
| 1:16.4 | Valerie Jarrett was a black woman from a relatively privileged background who, like her boss, |
| 1:22.5 | hoped that the Obama presidency could help to unite America and heal racial divisions while pushing a progressive agenda. |
| 1:25.5 | Did it work? |
| 1:26.8 | Well, the rise of Donald Trump and the polarization |
| 1:29.8 | evident in American politics and society today would suggest not. So how will historians view |
| 1:36.3 | the Obama legacy? Well, Valerie Jarrett has written a memoir of her life and times, and she joins me |
| 1:42.7 | now. Welcome to Hard Talk. Well, thank you. I'm delighted to be |
| 1:46.1 | here, Steve. Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure. If I may, I want to begin by taking you right |
| 1:50.1 | back to 1991. You then met, you interviewed a young Michelle Robinson for a job. You were a senior |
| 1:59.2 | lawyer. She wanted a job. A few weeks or months later, you met |
| 2:03.1 | her fianc, Barack Obama. What did you see in that couple that attracted you to them? And what do you |
| 2:11.5 | think they saw in you? Well, I had just been promoted from the law department to deputy chief of staff for |
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