President Obama Sits Down With Trevor Noah on 'The Daily Show'

Obama talks Russia, hacking, Trump, Obamacare, and much more.

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Complex Original

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On Friday night, President Obama was a guest on The Daily Show—or rather, he WAS The Daily Show. Host Trevor Noah's interview with POTUS took up the episode's entire running time. 

The interview, which you can see in its entirety above, was extremely wide-ranging. It began by discussing recent news that U.S. intelligence services have unequivocally stated that Russia tried to help Donald Trump win the Presidency with their hacking efforts. Obama said that Russian involvement itself wasn't news—it had been reported on for months. He wondered why the hacked emails themselves were the focus of public attention, rather than the hacking efforts.

“What is it about our political ecosystem, what is it about the state of our democracy where the leaks of what were frankly not very interesting emails that didn’t have any explosive information ended up being an obsession, and the fact that the Russians were doing this was not an obsession?” he asked.

The president and Noah also talked about Obamacare, and its possible repeal by the incoming Trump administration. "[Repealing Obamacare] has become sort of a Holy Grail for Republicans, based on ideology and not facts," Obama claimed, before enumerating the Affordable Care Act's benefits. "It will be interesting to watch Republicans, who now actually have to produce, come up with a replacement that works better. I don't think they will."

As for his post-Presidency plans, "I don't anticipate that I sudden just vanish," he explained. "But I think it is important to give the incoming administration their space... But there may be occasions...where I might have to say something." He named a potential Muslim registry and deporting children who would be protected by the DREAM Act (if were to become law) as examples.

The interview ended with Obama talking about race. "The challenge we face today when it comes to race is rarely the overt, Klansman-style racism," he explained. "It typically has more to do with the fact that people have got other stuff they want to talk about, and it's sort of uncomfortable...[Y]ou're not talking about cut-and-dried racist behavior, but rather the complex ways in which society's working these issues through."

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