As the nation’s first African-American president, Barack Obama has fielded several attacks during his presidency falsely asserting that he was born abroad rather than in Hawaii. But should Hillary Clinton become president, Obama predicted that as a woman she will field criticism that he has never faced.
In an interview on the late night comedy show Full Frontal with Samantha Bee, Obama predicted that the female equivalent of birther attacks that he faced would target her ambition.
I think the equivalent will be, ‘She’s tired, she’s moody, she’s being emotional,’ ” Obama said. “ ‘There’s something about her.’ When men are ambitious, it’s just taken for granted. When women are ambitious: why? That theme I think will continue throughout her presidency and it’s contributed to this notion that somehow she is hiding something.”
“What a nasty woman,” Bee added, referencing a Donald Trump insult directed at Clinton in the last debate.
Sam interviews @POTUS in the Wicked Wing of the West. #SamanthaBee pic.twitter.com/1nCnJj0iVg
— Full Frontal (@FullFrontalSamB) November 1, 2016
Bee joked that Obama should tell Trump — who called repeatedly for Obama to provide proof he was born in the United States before acknowledging the fact this fall — that he was in fact born outside the country, “just to, like, mess with him” after the election.
“I think it’s fair to say I will be organizing my post-presidency where I’m not close enough to him to whisper in his ear,” Obama responded.
The president also discussed his efforts to turn out the same younger voters who propelled him to the White House twice, calling Clinton the best candidate on issues like affordable college education and climate change.
“It turns out that young people are more interested and engaged than I think we give them credit for,” Obama said, joking that “sometimes they get cynical — hard to understand why after watching this campaign.”
When his daughter Malia voted for the first time this year, she took pride in casting her ballot that “a lot of young people feel, but you’ve got to talk to them about things that they care about,” Obama added.
Bee challenged Obama to respond to millennials, who she mimicked: ‘I don’t even know if there is, like, any point in voting, like, they’re both so totally flawed, like, don’t you even think it’s time to upend the whole system and just like break everything?”
“Young people have a bigger stake in this election than anybody,” Obama said. He urged them to vote, which would take “about the same amount of time that you spend going through cat videos on your phone.”
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