Obama's ‘60 Minutes’ interview: Voter fraud to delegitimizing democracy, here's how Trump presidency gets blasted
Former president Barack Obama will sit down for a detailed interview with news show ‘60 minutes’ and ‘CBS Sunday Morning’ on Sunday, November 15. This will be his first interview after this year's controversial presidential elections that saw Obama’s former vice-president, Joe Biden, emerging as president-elect by defeating incumbent President Donald Trump. Obama will speak with Gayle King for ‘CBS Sunday Morning’ and Scott Pelley for ‘60 Minutes’.
The interview will have a discussion on Obama’s highly-anticipated upcoming book, ‘A Promised Land’. The book will throw light on the former president’s foray into politics, his 2008 election win, and shall end with the death of terrorist Osama bin Laden in 2011. Newsmagazine ‘60 Minutes’ gave a sneak peek into the interview on Thursday, November 12, by posting Obama’s clip. The clip was captioned as, “Barack Obama tells Scott Pelley Republicans who ‘go along with’ the President’s claims of election fraud put democracy on ‘a dangerous path.’ The former president appears in his first interview about his new book ‘A Promised Land,’ Sunday on 60 Minutes”. As a snippet from the soon-to-be screened interview has already been published, here we shed some light on what can be the talking points to be brought by Obama.
Barack Obama tells Scott Pelley Republicans who “go along with” the President’s claims of election fraud put democracy on “a dangerous path.”
— 60 Minutes (@60Minutes) November 12, 2020
The former president appears in his first interview about his new book “A Promised Land,” Sunday on 60 Minutes. https://t.co/S7MEAx3F8j pic.twitter.com/CRx6XkT0Na
Trump's alleged voter fraud
As per reports, Obama will bring the spotlight on allegations coming from Trump’s camp that allege voter fraud with no evidence to support it. Obama claimed in the preview clip that such allegations are coming as Trump does not accept defeat. “They appear to be motivated, in part, because the president doesn't like to lose and never admits loss,” Obama said in the clip released by CBS. Obama's claims come after Trump filed lawsuits in the states of Pennsylvania and Michigan and is pushing reportedly false theories about fraud in Georgia and Nevada.
GOP backing Trump and threatening democracy
“I'm more troubled by the fact that other Republican officials who clearly know better are going along with this, are humoring him in this fashion. It is one more step in delegitimizing not just the incoming Biden administration, but democracy generally. And that's a dangerous path," Obama said in the CBS clip. This is the first time that the former president has publicly condemned members of the Republican party for not allowing for a smooth transition of power after Democratic challenger Biden has become the president-elect. Until now, Republicans are divided over Trump’s stand on elections with some supporting him and others not.
Trump cashing on racial tension, xenophobia
While the clip did not mention much apart from Obama’s stand on Trump and the GOP, reports indicate there are many other talking points that Obama might bring up in the scheduled interviews. The ‘60 Minutes’ interview that will discuss 'A Promised Land' and shall shed light on Trump’s cashing on racism. As per Daily Mail, in the book, Obama spoke about how Trump came to be his successor in 2016 and reportedly took advantage of the racial tensions in America.
He also mentioned, as per reports, how his (Obama’s) presence in the White House might have built racial insecurities since he is a Black. “It was as if my very presence in the White House had triggered a deep-seated panic, a sense that the natural order had been disrupted,” Obama wrote in the book which was obtained by CNN. Obama reportedly said that Trump had sensed the country's mood and had taken it as an issue to win the White House in the 2016 election. “Which is exactly what Donald Trump understood when he started peddling assertions that I had not been born in the United States and was thus an illegitimate president. For millions of Americans spooked by a Black man in the White House, he promised an elixir for their racial anxiety." He might as well shed some light on Republicans’ as xenophobic attitude in the interview.
Message for youngsters
One major takeaway is that Obama is aspirational and hopes that his book that he will be discussed in the interview will be read by youngsters who want to harbinger change. “More than anyone else, I wrote my book for young people—as an invitation to once again remake the world, and to bring about, through hard work, determination, and a big dose of imagination, an America that finally aligns with all that is best in us," he wrote in a November 12 tweet.
An excerpt from his book also reads that he wants to inspire the young generation. “I wanted to tell a more personal story that might inspire young people considering a life of public service: how my career in politics really started with a search for a place to fit in, a way to explain the different strands of my mixed-up heritage, and how it was only by hitching my wagon to something larger than myself that I was ultimately able to locate a community and purpose for my life.”
More than anyone else, I wrote my book for young people—as an invitation to once again remake the world, and to bring about, through hard work, determination, and a big dose of imagination, an America that finally aligns with all that is best in us. https://t.co/1yZrYWuckX
— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) November 12, 2020
Praise For Biden
The book reportedly has praise for Obama’s former vice-president Biden. Obama also campaigned for the 77-year-old in the 2020 elections. An excerpt from his upcoming book reads, “I liked the fact that Joe would be more than ready to serve as president if something happened to me — and that it might reassure those who still worried I was too young. What mattered most, though, was what my gut told me — that Joe was decent, honest, and loyal. I believed that he cared about ordinary people, and that when things got tough, I could trust him. I wouldn't be disappointed.”
Personal Life: Tension in marriage and quitting smoking
The book will give a glimpse of the personal life of Obama which can become a talking point in the upcoming interview. As per reports, the book divulges into Obama admitting how his life in the White House increased his smoking habit and caused tension in his marriage with Michelle. “Despite Michelle's success and popularity, I continued to sense an undercurrent of tension in her, subtle but constant, like the faint thrum of a hidden machine. It was as if, confined as we were within the walls of the White House, all her previous sources of frustration became more concentrated, more vivid, whether it was my round the clock absorption with work, or the way politics exposed our family to scrutiny and attacks, or the tendency of even friends and family members to treat her role as secondary in importance," Obama wrote. He added, “'lying next to Michelle in the dark, I'd think about those days when everything between us felt lighter, when her smile was more constant and our love less encumbered, and my heart would suddenly tighten at the thought that those days might not return.”
He admitted that how he got habitual of smoking eight, nine or 10 cigarettes a day and look for a “discreet location to grab an evening smoke”. However, it was his eldest daughter, Malia, who got him to quit which he did by "ceaselessly" chewing nicotine gum.