AP Photo/Evan Vucci
- Former President Barack Obama said during a “60 Minutes” interview that aired on Sunday that the election results show a “very divided” nation, and that there is a sense in the US that “the truth doesn’t even matter.”
- In a wide-ranging interview, Obama also discussed why President Donald Trump should concede the election, the killing of George Floyd, and his decision to run in 2008.
- He was promoting his memoir, “A Promised Land,” which will be released November 17.
- Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more stories.
Former President Barack Obama said during a “60 Minutes” interview that aired on Sunday that the election results show a “very divided” nation, and that there is a sense in the US that “the truth doesn’t even matter.”
In a wide-ranging interview, Obama also discussed why President Donald Trump should concede the election, the killing of George Floyd, and his decision to run in 2008. He was promoting his memoir, “A Promised Land,” which will be released November 17.
When asked by interviewer Scott Pelley whether it was time for Trump to concede the election to President-elect Joe Biden, Obama said “absolutely.”
“A president is a public servant. They are temporary occupants of the office, by design,” he said. “When your time is up then it is your job to put the country first and think beyond your own ego, and your own interests, and your own disappointments.”
Pelley asked Obama about a point made in his book in which he says American democracy is nearing a crisis.
"We have gone through a presidency that disregarded a whole host of basic institutional norms," Obama said. "What we've seen is what some people call truth decay, something that's been accelerated by outgoing President Trump, the sense that not only do we not have to tell the truth, but the truth doesn't even matter."
—60 Minutes (@60Minutes) November 16, 2020
Pelley also asked the former president about the results of the election, and what it means that voters did not entirely reject Trump, but turned out to vote for him in even higher numbers than in 2016.
"It tells us that we're very divided. And as I said, it's not just the politicians now. The voters are divided," Obama said. "It has now become a contest where issues, facts, policies per se don't matter as much as identity and wanting to beat the other guy."
Obama also said in the interview that "our adversaries have seen us weakened," not just because of the election, but because of increasing partisanship.
"We have these cleavages in the body politic that they're convinced they can exploit," he said, adding that when it comes to foreign policy, it should be "the United States of America, not the divided states of America."
In a clip of the interview released on Wednesday, Obama also criticized the president's unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud. He said he was especially troubled by the GOP leaders going along with them.
"It is one more step in delegitimizing not just the incoming Biden administration, but democracy generally," Obama said. "And that's a dangerous path."
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