- This book is Barack Obama convincing Barack Obama

to remain optimistic.

And what I mean by convincing Barack Obama,

I think of like a young Barack Obama.

I think of a fledgling Barack Obama.

Not trying to emulate you per se

but rather anyone who's trying to make a change

in the world or their world.

That's what it feels like.

If you are writing to young people

to be optimistic, in the book,

what are some of the frustrations

that you understand on their side

that may hinder that optimism?

You know, because if a young person says,

"Yeah but the system right now is crumbling more and more."

How do you maintain that optimism?

Or do you think that there has to be a point where they go,

"I'm not optimistic.

"I'm just fighting to break what it is

"to create something new."

- Part of the reason that it's 700 pages long is because,

by reading the book, they'll see,

"Man, there are a lot of structural problems

"or barriers,

in making this place better."

We're learning right now in vivid,

a vivid example of the fact that our democracy

is not,

the way we would imagine it to be, right?

There are all kinds of elements to it

where the most votes don't necessarily translate

into the equivalent amount of power.

Very popular proposals can wither

on the vine because of a filibuster in the Senate.

And so, I don't try to gloss those over.

The Paris Accord did not solve climate change

but it created the first global framework whereby

all countries agreed we have to do something about this,

and here's a mechanism to do it.

You can still be terrified about the pace

at which we are burning up the planet,

and yet think that was a worthwhile endeavor

because it gives us at least the opportunity,

maybe three, four, five years down the road

to keep building on that.

So, that is the kind of mentality

I want young people to have.

A certain impatience, a certain frustration,

a certain anger about the status quo.

There are times now where, you know,

you have younger activists criticizing me for,

"Obama, why didn't you take care of this

"or that or the other?"

And,

I,

welcome them feeling frustrated

and impatient because that's how I was before I got started.

And then they'll get their own knocks on the head.

And you know, some stuff won't work

out exactly the way they want,

but the impulse is the one that I want to encourage,

because it's as a consequence of that

constant striving and imagining something better

that things don't get exactly

as we want it, but they get better.

- Have you maintained connections with those worlds leaders.

Do you send Angela Merkel memes?

Like, who are you still close with,

just as a human being?

- You know, I don't send Angela Merkel memes,

but I talked to her sometime.

Sometimes, you know, she'll give me a call,

I'll give her a call and we'll trade notes.

You know, there are a handful of folks who,

you've been in the foxhole with right?

You've done some good, important work.

Some of them are still in power.

So I don't want to mention that, you know

that I'm giving them a call because you know

who knows that might give them, get them in trouble.

You mentioned somebody like an Angela Merkel.

Look, you know the stance she took in Europe,

relative to immigration and the enormous political costs

she paid for that,

and yet there was something inside her that said,

"Look, I'm not going to simply abandon

"a million people who are in desperate need."

You know, you see that in somebody and you say,

it encourages you,

that for all the,

cruelty and and venality

and corruption around the world,

there are a lot of good people doing good work.

And some of them actually rise

to significant positions of power.

And in that sense, democracy can work

the way it's supposed to.

If, you know, we have a vigilant citizenry

and that's not always the case.

- What do you believe a leader is,

not just somebody who's in power, but a leader?

- The program we did in Johannesburg,

we gathered up 200 young leaders

from 50 countries on the continent of Africa.

And it was as varied.

You had young women who had started rural health clinics.

- [Trevor] Yeah.

- You had MPs, you know,

who, who had taken a more conventional political route.

You had entrepreneurs.

The thing they all had in common though,

was

this

sense, not only that the world could be better

and that they had a role to play in it,

but also the belief that they couldn't do it by themselves,

and that they had to, in some ways,

unlock the potential and power of other people.

A speech I gave in Johannesburg in conjunction with that,

it was, it was for the anniversary

of Mandela's hundredth anniversary,

where I contrasted that

sort of democratic

inclusive leadership to the strong man leadership

that, in some ways, we've seen ascendant

in certain parts of the world,

in some ways has was ascendent here in the United States.

And those are two different stories of what it means

to be a leader and power.

And that conflict, that battle between a more democratic,

inclusive vision, and one that's top-down, dominant

subordinate, that's a contest that's taking place here

in the United States and around the world,

and it's not going to be finished

just because the election is over and Donald Trump

was defeated because you see examples

of this in the Philippines and Hungary,

in a variety of countries in Africa and Asia.

And, and so that contest is going to continue.

- Should the world follow America,

or is it time for the world to start doing its own thing

and America to be less the world police?

- I think, it is a good thing that other countries

catch up and have their own capabilities

and their own agency.

That's not something that I think America should fear.

My argument would be that even in a more multipolar world,

where you don't have just one big power,

but you have other countries who are coming into their own,

the principles that America articulated at its best

about rule of law, human rights, freedom of speech,

democracy, those values, at least I choose to believe,

are not exclusively American.

You as somebody who lived in South Africa,

know

the play that in other countries,

sometimes you hear where somebody

who's doing something entirely for power and money

and influence will say, if they're criticized,

they'll say "Ah, you know,

"you've been just influenced by Western thinking.

"That's colonial thinking."

No, no, no, no.

You are stealing from your people.

Don't, and when we criticize you,

don't claim that somehow,

this is some American hegemony

being asserted against you.

We're calling you on the fact that you're a thief.

I think it's important for us to,

recognize that for all its failings,

that the values that America is often articulated

on the world stage, had been ones that I would still

believe in and that a lot of people took comfort from.

And when we are not asserting them, oftentimes they don't

you know, they don't play out on the world stage.

- As someone who had to make decisions

and someone who was in that leadership position,

do you sometimes grapple with how America did

or did not help itself in how it acted with the world?

Because in the world, like

I'll tell you as an international person,

we would oftentimes go like,

"Man, yes, America is great

"and it's doing wonderful things."

But then be like "But also man,

"sometimes they just break the rules

"and no one can say anything about it."

- Absolutely.

Well and I record examples

in the book of where I'm grappling with this, right?

And one of the interesting challenges

of being President of the United States,

but I think being head of government

or state in any country is,

you inherit a legacy, right?

So

if

I come in as President and,

I can't undo the Iraq war,

the decision to go into Iraq.

Now I can

manage as best I can

how we can wind down that war,

mitigate some of the damage that's been done,

but I can't reverse it.

- Did you ever envy though,

how, like Trump just came in and basically

broke shit though?

'Cause I mean he didn't care.

- No, I didn't envy it because I do care.

And I,

do not think that is an option,

to simply

pretend

that the legacy of problems

or issues that you inherit are somehow

things you can just brush aside.

So, the answer is, yes.

I would struggle with the fact that any action I took,

particularly when you're talking about

you know, counter-terrorism.

- Right.

- That's probably the area where I wrestled with this most.

Because my obligation first and foremost,

in the United States was to make sure

that people didn't get hurt.

That's sort of the bare minimum that you expect

out of a nation state that you're living in,

is that you can defend against harm.

Because you're dealing with non-state actors,

that meant that by the time I took office,

you had networks that were embedded in societies,

not necessarily supported by those societies

but they're there.

And they are plotting and they are planning.

And that wasn't made up.

And there were organizations that,

if they could blow up the New York subway system,

they would.

If they could get their hands on a biological weapon,

they would use it.

You then are wrestling with,

how do I

protect

the American people

from those actors,

but do it in a way

that is morally and ethically justified.

And war is madness.

Kinetic action of any sort,

military action of any sort,

that results in death and destruction,

at a certain level is not the thing

I would want humanity to do.

And what happens to people is,

tragic.

It is not something you gloss over.