Name: Barack Obama on His Multiracial Identity | Letterman
Uploaded: 2022-02-01T16:14:37.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Barack Obama on His Multiracial Identity | Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2022-02-01. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Barack Obama on His Multiracial Identity | Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2022-02-01. Transcript available.

Nice to see you. Thank you very much for being here.
Thank you for having me.
Right off the top here, tell me, what were the dreams from your father?
What is that referencing?
Well, you know, I have a mixed-up background.
First thing people ask me is, where did you get that funny name, Barack Obama?
Although, you know, you had a top-ten list, but you missed a couple.
Yeah, ways to mispronounce Barack Obama.
I mean, there was Alabama and Yo Mama.
But, you know, my father was from Kenya, from Africa,
and he was part of that first generation of students
that came to study in the United States,
and he met my mother, who was from Kansas.
And so what the book references is sort of what his ambitions were
coming to this country and some of the disappointments he went through
and sort of the difficult times that my parents went through
as people of different races and backgrounds and cultures.
When you were a child, did you know that you were trying to emulate his wisdom,
or it was only not until later that you realized what he was teaching?
You know, Lyndon Johnson, who I don't quote that often, had a great saying.
He said, every man is trying to make up for his father's mistakes
or live up to his expectations.
And I think that I was probably trying to do both.
I think in some ways he made a lot of mistakes, especially with his family,
and I've tried to compensate for those.
But he was a very bright man and somebody who accomplished a lot,
and so I think I was trying to live up to those as well.
So it's interesting, good and bad, they all provided lessons for you.
They all provide lessons for you.
And as a kid, you were in Hawaii?
I was in Hawaii.
And so I think the main reason my wife married me was because I still have
family in Hawaii,
and she figured she's on vacation.
Yeah, that's what I'm saying.
She's from Chicago.
She's thinking, I've been looking for a warm weather for a while.
Chicago in February.
And let's talk about, was I right about you've been in the state Senate for...
I was in the state Senate for eight years, and then I decided to run for the
United States Senate,
and people's general estimation was he'd probably be the best U.S. senator.
The guy's done good work, but he's got no money, he's got no organization,
and nobody can pronounce his name, so it's not likely he's going to win.
But the thing about your name, it's easy to pronounce, and it's cool.
Well, that's what I think.
Yeah.
That's what I think.
You know, there were some advisors who told me to change my name.
Really?
Yeah, and somebody suggested Cat Stevens, for example.
That wasn't going to work.
Other than usually the mayor of Chicago is named Daley.
Right.
I know very little about Illinois politics.
Jane Byrne, I guess, was in there for a while.
Now, was there a guy who was running for Senate, maybe an incumbent, maybe not?
I think a Republican, and he had a problem because he and his wife
would go to strip clubs and have sex.
Well, that wasn't it.
Did I dream that, or does any of this ring a bell?
There were some issues, some allegations.
Yeah.
But we didn't touch that stuff.
I see.
We took the high road.
Now, this is who you were running against?
Well, he dropped out, right?
He dropped out.
You know, the Republicans, you know, they seem to have a lot of fun
given all their moral value stuff.
They enjoyed themselves.
It sounded like fun to me.
Yeah.
But he was the seated senator, is that correct?
Well, no, it was an open seat.
Open seat.
And so we were running against each other.
He dropped out.
And then the Republicans, for about a month and a half,
couldn't find anybody out of the 12 million people in Illinois
to run against me.
And so they finally brought in this guy from Maryland, Alan Keyes,
who was a pretty intense guy.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And that didn't work out too well for them.
And now you're one of the keynote speakers at the Democratic Convention,
and your star is certainly beginning to rise.
Well, you know, it was a great honor speaking at the Democratic Convention.
It's a big crowd.
Yes.
There are like 15,000 people.
Yeah.
So I walked in, and, you know, it was packed.
And people with signs and funny hats, and, you know, there are celebrities.
You know, Peter Jennings is down on one end, and Puff Daddy's over here.
And so I turned to my wife.
I said, you know, this is kind of a big speech.
Yeah.
I'm feeling kind of nervous.
And my wife's wonderful.
She held my hand and looked me in the eye, and she said,
Honey, don't screw it up.
Yeah.
Well, sure.
Yeah.
That's exactly what you need.
What I needed.
Absolutely.
All right.
Well, we got plenty to talk about.
I want to, and I don't know if this is even in your jurisdiction as a senator,
but that Pistons-Pacers game.
Oh.
That was a problem.
I was surprised to learn that currently there are no African-American senators.
There are currently.
You're the current one now.
When I get sworn in, I will be the only one.
That seems hard to believe now, isn't it?
Yeah.
We need to make some progress on that front,
and there's going to be a gentleman joining me, Ken Salazar,
who will be the only Hispanic United States senator.
So, you know, we're going to have a small caucus.
Yeah.
And how many African-American senators have we had in the history of this?
We have had five.
There were two during Reconstruction.
They were basically appointed by the union armies,
and then there have been three who were elected.
So we've got progress to make on that front.
But one of the nice things about my campaign was that, you know,
people, I think, anticipated me just getting votes from the black community
or just from the city,
and we ended up winning in places like Iroquois County
and Kankakee County and Sangamon County.
And as you might anticipate, there aren't a lot of African-Americans in those
places.
And I'm guessing that there are more congressmen, African-American congressmen.
But does this, in the African-American community,
does this have the kind of disenfranchising effect that one might think,
that the representation at the Senate level is small?
Well, I think it's a problem.
Part of the problem is that you've got to run statewide as opposed to just
these congressional districts.
And when you run statewide, there are no states in the union where African-Americans
are majority.
You've got to raise a lot of money,
and African-Americans oftentimes have difficult times raising the kind of money
that's needed for these TV ads.
So it's a challenge.
But I'm hopeful that as a consequence of my election
and the terrific faith that the people of Illinois placed in me
that we're going to be able to improve on that around the country.
Good for you.
Good for you.
What do you think of things since the election?
First of all, did the election surprise you?
Did the Democrats make mistakes?
Did everything go right and it just didn't work?
Or what happened?
No, I think we made some mistakes.
Look, you've got to give credit.
George Bush had one of the best political teams that's ever been put together.
They ran a very smart campaign and a tough campaign.
And we made some mistakes.
There's no doubt about it.
I think John Kerry picked up steam right at the end.
You know, we probably lost some opportunities.
What were the mistakes?
Well, you know, it's always easy to second guess.
I think probably even John would acknowledge that, you know, windsurfing is,
you know,
that you probably want to play softball or something.
You know, just to kind of relate to folks more.
Have you met the president?
You must know the president.
Well, you know, he called me.
He was very gracious after the election.
He gave me a call and we both agreed that we had married up.
And then he invited me over to the White House and we had breakfast with Dick
Cheney and Karl Rove.
And it was a real fun time.
Yeah, it sounds like Mardi Gras.
And what is the status now?
The Senate is pretty much hamstrung by the president.
Is that what it looks like?
Well, look, I mean, you've got Republicans are in charge of the White House,
the Senate and the House of Representatives.
So in terms of sweatshirts, you're going to have to go talk to them.
I can't help you.
I don't know why these prices are so high.
What do you do as the new guy?
What is that going to be?
Yeah, they make you sharpened pencils.
Is there any kind of indoctrination?
Are there seminars?
Well, we had an orientation last week and, you know, they described for you how
the process gets started and how to hire up the staff.
The biggest challenge, though, I think, for somebody like myself is just making
sure that you're answering the mail and answering people's.
People get angry if you're not responsive.
Right.
I mean, they want to know your position on Medicaid and Medicare.
But the most important thing they want to know is when they send a letter about
their Social Security check that somebody's responding to them.
So we're going to have to spend a lot of time just focusing on that and folks
back home in the state of Illinois.
What do you know about Colin Powell, Secretary of State?
Did he quit or was he pushed out?
Well, what's clear is that he was not the advisor that really had the ear of
the president.
And I think people would acknowledge that generally, that the president had
more confidence in Condoleezza Rice and Donald Rumsfeld.
And I'm sure he felt frustrated over time.
He had a different vision of how our foreign policy should operate.
Now, I don't begrudge the president his right to hire the person that he thinks
best represents him.
And the nice thing is now when Condoleezza Rice goes overseas, I don't think
people are going to second guess.
They know that they're talking to somebody who's got the president's ear.
What happened at that basketball game in Detroit?
Honestly.
Now, I said this earlier in the week.
From looking at it, I have to blame.
There's two things that I think are responsible.
The fans and being drunk.
Because everything was okay, everything was basketball, until Ron Artest gets pelted
with a beer.
Then that's not basketball.
And I know there are professionals that are supposed to rise above it and
supposed to just look the other way.
But, my God, you know, who really puts up with that, honestly?
Yeah, nobody except politicians.
I mean, I think it looked like Washington.
It was a melee.
You know, I played basketball.
And, you know, your emotions get riled up.
But, you know, I think everybody's got to step back.
I think it is an example of a culture, generally, where, you know, people are
quick to anger.
And people, I think, take out their frustrations on each other in ways that
aren't appropriate.
And I think, both in our politics, in our sports, in our day-to-day
interactions, you know, we should be able to be a little more agreeable.
Right.
And will something be done to change it?
Or will we just wait until something really, really, really ugly happens and
then it will change automatically?
You know, I think part of what has to happen is people have to set a tone.
You know, one of the things I'm proud about in our campaign is we didn't run
negative ads.
You know, what we said was we can disagree with somebody, but that doesn't mean
they're bad people.
And I think that part of what happens in our politics and in other walks of
life is that we spend a lot of time vilifying and denigrating people who don't
agree with us.
And that's something that our children pick up on.
They see that on television, they hear it in their leadership, and they start
acting that way.
Paul and I run negative ads.
Against each other?
It just doesn't make any difference.
We don't care.
Now, the other thing that I found disturbing about watching, I didn't see it
during the game, I just saw the endless replays of that episode.
I was watching it, and I just couldn't help but say to myself, eh, it's kind of
cool.
You know, it actually, you know, it sort of was.
Yeah.
It was a little different in a form of basketball.
You sort of like that?
Yeah, it's just like, and then at the end when the big tubby guy comes out and
just says, all right, somebody poof me, and then Jermaine O'Neal comes out and
just, okay, boom.
It was kind of cool, don't you think?
Dave, this is what I was talking about.
I see.
You're contributing the coarsening of the culture.
Now, listen.
Well, too late.
No surprise there.
Now, listen.
Make me a promise now, and you know what I'm talking about.
When you run for president, whenever, when you run for president, and I have
the feeling, and you have the feeling, you come back and see us then, all right?
Well, I hope you invite me before then.
All right, all right, but we will.
But when you make the run, you come back and see us.
All right, of course.

Barack Obama on His Multiracial Identity | Letterman

Nice to see you. Thank you very much for being here.
Thank you for having me.
Right off the top here, tell me, what were the dreams from your father?
What is that referencing?
Well, you know, I have a mixed-up background.
First thing people ask me is, where did you get that funny name, Barack Obama?
Although, you know, you had a top-ten list, but you missed a couple.
Yeah, ways to mispronounce Barack Obama.
I mean, there was Alabama and Yo Mama.
But, you know, my father was from Kenya, from Africa,
and he was part of that first generation of students
that came to study in the United States,
and he met my mother, who was from Kansas.
And so what the book references is sort of what his ambitions were
coming to this country and some of the disappointments he went through
and sort of the difficult times that my parents went through
as people of different races and backgrounds and cultures.
When you were a child, did you know that you were trying to emulate his wisdom,
or it was only not until later that you realized what he was teaching?
You know, Lyndon Johnson, who I don't quote that often, had a great saying.
He said, every man is trying to make up for his father's mistakes
or live up to his expectations.
And I think that I was probably trying to do both.
I think in some ways he made a lot of mistakes, especially with his family,
and I've tried to compensate for those.
But he was a very bright man and somebody who accomplished a lot,
and so I think I was trying to live up to those as well.
So it's interesting, good and bad, they all provided lessons for you.
They all provide lessons for you.
And as a kid, you were in Hawaii?
I was in Hawaii.
And so I think the main reason my wife married me was because I still have
family in Hawaii,
and she figured she's on vacation.
Yeah, that's what I'm saying.
She's from Chicago.
She's thinking, I've been looking for a warm weather for a while.
Chicago in February.
And let's talk about, was I right about you've been in the state Senate for...
I was in the state Senate for eight years, and then I decided to run for the
United States Senate,
and people's general estimation was he'd probably be the best U.S. senator.
The guy's done good work, but he's got no money, he's got no organization,
and nobody can pronounce his name, so it's not likely he's going to win.
But the thing about your name, it's easy to pronounce, and it's cool.
Well, that's what I think.
Yeah.
That's what I think.
You know, there were some advisors who told me to change my name.
Really?
Yeah, and somebody suggested Cat Stevens, for example.
That wasn't going to work.
Other than usually the mayor of Chicago is named Daley.
Right.
I know very little about Illinois politics.
Jane Byrne, I guess, was in there for a while.
Now, was there a guy who was running for Senate, maybe an incumbent, maybe not?
I think a Republican, and he had a problem because he and his wife
would go to strip clubs and have sex.
Well, that wasn't it.
Did I dream that, or does any of this ring a bell?
There were some issues, some allegations.
Yeah.
But we didn't touch that stuff.
I see.
We took the high road.
Now, this is who you were running against?
Well, he dropped out, right?
He dropped out.
You know, the Republicans, you know, they seem to have a lot of fun
given all their moral value stuff.
They enjoyed themselves.
It sounded like fun to me.
Yeah.
But he was the seated senator, is that correct?
Well, no, it was an open seat.
Open seat.
And so we were running against each other.
He dropped out.
And then the Republicans, for about a month and a half,
couldn't find anybody out of the 12 million people in Illinois
to run against me.
And so they finally brought in this guy from Maryland, Alan Keyes,
who was a pretty intense guy.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And that didn't work out too well for them.
And now you're one of the keynote speakers at the Democratic Convention,
and your star is certainly beginning to rise.
Well, you know, it was a great honor speaking at the Democratic Convention.
It's a big crowd.
Yes.
There are like 15,000 people.
Yeah.
So I walked in, and, you know, it was packed.
And people with signs and funny hats, and, you know, there are celebrities.
You know, Peter Jennings is down on one end, and Puff Daddy's over here.
And so I turned to my wife.
I said, you know, this is kind of a big speech.
Yeah.
I'm feeling kind of nervous.
And my wife's wonderful.
She held my hand and looked me in the eye, and she said,
Honey, don't screw it up.
Yeah.
Well, sure.
Yeah.
That's exactly what you need.
What I needed.
Absolutely.
All right.
Well, we got plenty to talk about.
I want to, and I don't know if this is even in your jurisdiction as a senator,
but that Pistons-Pacers game.
Oh.
That was a problem.
I was surprised to learn that currently there are no African-American senators.
There are currently.
You're the current one now.
When I get sworn in, I will be the only one.
That seems hard to believe now, isn't it?
Yeah.
We need to make some progress on that front,
and there's going to be a gentleman joining me, Ken Salazar,
who will be the only Hispanic United States senator.
So, you know, we're going to have a small caucus.
Yeah.
And how many African-American senators have we had in the history of this?
We have had five.
There were two during Reconstruction.
They were basically appointed by the union armies,
and then there have been three who were elected.
So we've got progress to make on that front.
But one of the nice things about my campaign was that, you know,
people, I think, anticipated me just getting votes from the black community
or just from the city,
and we ended up winning in places like Iroquois County
and Kankakee County and Sangamon County.
And as you might anticipate, there aren't a lot of African-Americans in those
places.
And I'm guessing that there are more congressmen, African-American congressmen.
But does this, in the African-American community,
does this have the kind of disenfranchising effect that one might think,
that the representation at the Senate level is small?
Well, I think it's a problem.
Part of the problem is that you've got to run statewide as opposed to just
these congressional districts.
And when you run statewide, there are no states in the union where African-Americans
are majority.
You've got to raise a lot of money,
and African-Americans oftentimes have difficult times raising the kind of money
that's needed for these TV ads.
So it's a challenge.
But I'm hopeful that as a consequence of my election
and the terrific faith that the people of Illinois placed in me
that we're going to be able to improve on that around the country.
Good for you.
Good for you.
What do you think of things since the election?
First of all, did the election surprise you?
Did the Democrats make mistakes?
Did everything go right and it just didn't work?
Or what happened?
No, I think we made some mistakes.
Look, you've got to give credit.
George Bush had one of the best political teams that's ever been put together.
They ran a very smart campaign and a tough campaign.
And we made some mistakes.
There's no doubt about it.
I think John Kerry picked up steam right at the end.
You know, we probably lost some opportunities.
What were the mistakes?
Well, you know, it's always easy to second guess.
I think probably even John would acknowledge that, you know, windsurfing is,
you know,
that you probably want to play softball or something.
You know, just to kind of relate to folks more.
Have you met the president?
You must know the president.
Well, you know, he called me.
He was very gracious after the election.
He gave me a call and we both agreed that we had married up.
And then he invited me over to the White House and we had breakfast with Dick
Cheney and Karl Rove.
And it was a real fun time.
Yeah, it sounds like Mardi Gras.
And what is the status now?
The Senate is pretty much hamstrung by the president.
Is that what it looks like?
Well, look, I mean, you've got Republicans are in charge of the White House,
the Senate and the House of Representatives.
So in terms of sweatshirts, you're going to have to go talk to them.
I can't help you.
I don't know why these prices are so high.
What do you do as the new guy?
What is that going to be?
Yeah, they make you sharpened pencils.
Is there any kind of indoctrination?
Are there seminars?
Well, we had an orientation last week and, you know, they described for you how
the process gets started and how to hire up the staff.
The biggest challenge, though, I think, for somebody like myself is just making
sure that you're answering the mail and answering people's.
People get angry if you're not responsive.
Right.
I mean, they want to know your position on Medicaid and Medicare.
But the most important thing they want to know is when they send a letter about
their Social Security check that somebody's responding to them.
So we're going to have to spend a lot of time just focusing on that and folks
back home in the state of Illinois.
What do you know about Colin Powell, Secretary of State?
Did he quit or was he pushed out?
Well, what's clear is that he was not the advisor that really had the ear of
the president.
And I think people would acknowledge that generally, that the president had
more confidence in Condoleezza Rice and Donald Rumsfeld.
And I'm sure he felt frustrated over time.
He had a different vision of how our foreign policy should operate.
Now, I don't begrudge the president his right to hire the person that he thinks
best represents him.
And the nice thing is now when Condoleezza Rice goes overseas, I don't think
people are going to second guess.
They know that they're talking to somebody who's got the president's ear.
What happened at that basketball game in Detroit?
Honestly.
Now, I said this earlier in the week.
From looking at it, I have to blame.
There's two things that I think are responsible.
The fans and being drunk.
Because everything was okay, everything was basketball, until Ron Artest gets pelted
with a beer.
Then that's not basketball.
And I know there are professionals that are supposed to rise above it and
supposed to just look the other way.
But, my God, you know, who really puts up with that, honestly?
Yeah, nobody except politicians.
I mean, I think it looked like Washington.
It was a melee.
You know, I played basketball.
And, you know, your emotions get riled up.
But, you know, I think everybody's got to step back.
I think it is an example of a culture, generally, where, you know, people are
quick to anger.
And people, I think, take out their frustrations on each other in ways that
aren't appropriate.
And I think, both in our politics, in our sports, in our day-to-day
interactions, you know, we should be able to be a little more agreeable.
Right.
And will something be done to change it?
Or will we just wait until something really, really, really ugly happens and
then it will change automatically?
You know, I think part of what has to happen is people have to set a tone.
You know, one of the things I'm proud about in our campaign is we didn't run
negative ads.
You know, what we said was we can disagree with somebody, but that doesn't mean
they're bad people.
And I think that part of what happens in our politics and in other walks of
life is that we spend a lot of time vilifying and denigrating people who don't
agree with us.
And that's something that our children pick up on.
They see that on television, they hear it in their leadership, and they start
acting that way.
Paul and I run negative ads.
Against each other?
It just doesn't make any difference.
We don't care.
Now, the other thing that I found disturbing about watching, I didn't see it
during the game, I just saw the endless replays of that episode.
I was watching it, and I just couldn't help but say to myself, eh, it's kind of
cool.
You know, it actually, you know, it sort of was.
Yeah.
It was a little different in a form of basketball.
You sort of like that?
Yeah, it's just 