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Barack Obama: “Michelle and I set up the Obama foundation to train the next…”

Featuring: Barack Obama, Democratic | 44th President of the United States | National

Barack Obama Discusses Leadership, Democracy, and AI at Hamilton College

Published April 7, 2025 | Video Starts at 06:06

What do you do? What do you enjoy doing? How do you spend your days? Well, right now, at the moment, I'm splitting time between the work for the foundation. Michelle and I set up the Obama foundation to train the next generation of leaders here in the United States and around the world. And that keeps me busy. And I am also finishing the second half of my presidential memoirs, which, in case any of you feel sorry for yourself, this is like 50 term papers. (06:06–06:15)

CLAIM

Asserts that the Obama Foundation was established to train future leaders in the U.S. and globally.

This is an excerpt from a raw transcript. The assertions have not been audited or verified. Tap the video to view the source footage and understand the context.

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Barack Obama

“When I got there, I was the only African American [in the United States Senate]. There was one Hispanic [Senator].”
Barack Obama Discusses Leadership, Democracy, and AI at Hamilton College | Uploaded April 7, 2025 | 21:09-21:19
“In India, you've got a third of the country that still doesn't have electricity.”
Barack Obama Discusses Leadership, Democracy, and AI at Hamilton College | Uploaded April 7, 2025 | 38:47-38:54
“Already the current models of AI... can code better than, let's call it 60, 70% of coders.”
Barack Obama Discusses Leadership, Democracy, and AI at Hamilton College | Uploaded April 7, 2025 | 51:39-52:05
“The system that's set up, it's actually helped us grow. It helped China lift a billion people out of poverty.”
Barack Obama Discusses Leadership, Democracy, and AI at Hamilton College | Uploaded April 7, 2025 | 1:03:06-1:03:14
“When I first started on the campaign trail with all those facts and policies, etcetera, it was pretty flat and dry.”
Barack Obama Discusses Leadership, Democracy, and AI at Hamilton College | Uploaded April 7, 2025 | 11:41-11:48
“What actually made me into a better communicator was when I started actually listening to the stories of the people I was meeting.”
Barack Obama Discusses Leadership, Democracy, and AI at Hamilton College | Uploaded April 7, 2025 | 11:51-12:01
“We at our foundation, when we bring in young people who are already incredibly accomplished... a lot of what we do initially is just get…”
Barack Obama Discusses Leadership, Democracy, and AI at Hamilton College | Uploaded April 7, 2025 | 12:46-13:26
“The fact that we live in a country in which routinely children are killed, are shot, that doesn't make sense to me.”
Barack Obama Discusses Leadership, Democracy, and AI at Hamilton College | Uploaded April 7, 2025 | 15:10-15:28
“I don't really understand what it is that we're doing in allowing semiautomatic weapons in people's hands.”
Barack Obama Discusses Leadership, Democracy, and AI at Hamilton College | Uploaded April 7, 2025 | 15:43-15:55
“I could not persuade enough of the country and certainly enough of Congress to prioritize [gun control].”
Barack Obama Discusses Leadership, Democracy, and AI at Hamilton College | Uploaded April 7, 2025 | 16:03-16:11
“There was a broad consensus between Democrats, Republicans, conservatives, liberals, around a certain set of rules where we settle our…”
Barack Obama Discusses Leadership, Democracy, and AI at Hamilton College | Uploaded April 7, 2025 | 18:06-18:20
“I do believe that our commitment to those principles has eroded.”
Barack Obama Discusses Leadership, Democracy, and AI at Hamilton College | Uploaded April 7, 2025 | 20:10-20:19
“I think it eroded in part because the government itself got really big.”
Barack Obama Discusses Leadership, Democracy, and AI at Hamilton College | Uploaded April 7, 2025 | 20:19-20:27
“The economy wasn't working for everybody. Now, that in part had to do with the fact that government wasn't as responsive as it should have…”
Barack Obama Discusses Leadership, Democracy, and AI at Hamilton College | Uploaded April 7, 2025 | 23:01-23:15
“One of the most important aspects of our democratic practice is having a well informed citizenry which is reliant on a free, objective…”
Barack Obama Discusses Leadership, Democracy, and AI at Hamilton College | Uploaded April 7, 2025 | 23:17-23:34
“I am more troubled [by] the idea that a White House can say to law firms, if you represent parties that we don't like, we're going to pull…”
Barack Obama Discusses Leadership, Democracy, and AI at Hamilton College | Uploaded April 7, 2025 | 24:40-24:59
“Imagine if I had pulled Fox News credentials from the White House press corps.”
Barack Obama Discusses Leadership, Democracy, and AI at Hamilton College | Uploaded April 7, 2025 | 25:33-25:37
“I think people tend to think democracy, rule of law, independent judiciary, freedom of the press, that's all abstract stuff because it's not…”
Barack Obama Discusses Leadership, Democracy, and AI at Hamilton College | Uploaded April 7, 2025 | 27:35-27:50
“One of the things that has distinguished us in the past has been this basic idea that we are a rules based society.”
Barack Obama Discusses Leadership, Democracy, and AI at Hamilton College | Uploaded April 7, 2025 | 27:55-28:06
“I have been absolutely clear throughout my presidency, post presidency, the idea of canceling a speaker who comes to your campus trying to…”
Barack Obama Discusses Leadership, Democracy, and AI at Hamilton College | Uploaded April 7, 2025 | 34:25-35:00
“During the negotiations around the Paris Agreement, the key was to get China and India bought in on them, taking responsibility for reducing…”
Barack Obama Discusses Leadership, Democracy, and AI at Hamilton College | Uploaded April 7, 2025 | 37:41-38:02
“Most of the existing greenhouse gases up there were created by the west during the long period of our industrialization.”
Barack Obama Discusses Leadership, Democracy, and AI at Hamilton College | Uploaded April 7, 2025 | 38:05-38:16
“On a per capita basis, each American has a much bigger carbon footprint than [China and India].”
Barack Obama Discusses Leadership, Democracy, and AI at Hamilton College | Uploaded April 7, 2025 | 38:39-38:45
“I would not have gotten elected president had it not been for us being probably one of the earliest adapters of social media.”
Barack Obama Discusses Leadership, Democracy, and AI at Hamilton College | Uploaded April 7, 2025 | 41:50-41:59
“When I started my presidential campaign, the two dominant social media platforms were MySpace and Meetup.”
Barack Obama Discusses Leadership, Democracy, and AI at Hamilton College | Uploaded April 7, 2025 | 42:41-42:53
“We would have entire states that got organized [for the campaign] without having a staff there.”
Barack Obama Discusses Leadership, Democracy, and AI at Hamilton College | Uploaded April 7, 2025 | 43:10-43:15
“AI will be more impactful and it is going to come faster.”
Barack Obama Discusses Leadership, Democracy, and AI at Hamilton College | Uploaded April 7, 2025 | 50:41-50:47
“A lot of that work [coding] is going to go away.”
Barack Obama Discusses Leadership, Democracy, and AI at Hamilton College | Uploaded April 7, 2025 | 52:21-52:26
“It will be just as disruptive as it was for factories and manufacturing in areas like this, steel mills and textiles.”
Barack Obama Discusses Leadership, Democracy, and AI at Hamilton College | Uploaded April 7, 2025 | 53:40-53:48
“Whenever you have big disruptions like this that is going to require us to reorganize our societies.”
Barack Obama Discusses Leadership, Democracy, and AI at Hamilton College | Uploaded April 7, 2025 | 54:56-55:04
“It may be that everybody now, not just blue collar workers, not just factory workers, are going to have to figure out where do I get a job.”
Barack Obama Discusses Leadership, Democracy, and AI at Hamilton College | Uploaded April 7, 2025 | 55:04-55:22
“There was a consensus in this country around just the basics of democracy [after World War II].”
Barack Obama Discusses Leadership, Democracy, and AI at Hamilton College | Uploaded April 7, 2025 | 59:57-1:00:06
“All of you have grown up in an international order that was largely created by the United States and its allies after World War II.”
Barack Obama Discusses Leadership, Democracy, and AI at Hamilton College | Uploaded April 7, 2025 | 1:00:29-1:00:41
“We're going to have an alliance with Europe, including our former enemies, and in Asia, including our former enemies.”
Barack Obama Discusses Leadership, Democracy, and AI at Hamilton College | Uploaded April 7, 2025 | 1:01:27-1:01:36
“In the last two months we have seen a US Government actively try to destroy that order and discredit it.”
Barack Obama Discusses Leadership, Democracy, and AI at Hamilton College | Uploaded April 7, 2025 | 1:01:56-1:02:14
“Overall, this system we set up created the wealthiest, healthiest, most peaceful era in human history.”
Barack Obama Discusses Leadership, Democracy, and AI at Hamilton College | Uploaded April 7, 2025 | 1:06:34-1:06:50
“One of the challenges of globalization was the fact that it did accelerate inequality.”
Barack Obama Discusses Leadership, Democracy, and AI at Hamilton College | Uploaded April 7, 2025 | 1:07:02-1:07:08
“It was very good for corporations that could operate internationally, but they oftentimes weren't willing to share that bounty with their…”
Barack Obama Discusses Leadership, Democracy, and AI at Hamilton College | Uploaded April 7, 2025 | 1:07:09-1:07:24
“We did not take care of those folks [workers in the United States].”
Barack Obama Discusses Leadership, Democracy, and AI at Hamilton College | Uploaded April 7, 2025 | 1:07:43-1:07:47
“That wasn't a problem of globalization per se, that was a failure of policy here in the United States to help that.”
Barack Obama Discusses Leadership, Democracy, and AI at Hamilton College | Uploaded April 7, 2025 | 1:07:47-1:07:56
“Racism still exists in the world.”
Barack Obama Discusses Leadership, Democracy, and AI at Hamilton College | Uploaded April 7, 2025 | 1:12:53-1:12:56
“Women are still treated badly in a lot of the world and in our country.”
Barack Obama Discusses Leadership, Democracy, and AI at Hamilton College | Uploaded April 7, 2025 | 1:13:17-1:13:24
“We're not going to hit sort of the Target levels of 2 degrees centigrade increase [for climate change].”
Barack Obama Discusses Leadership, Democracy, and AI at Hamilton College | Uploaded April 7, 2025 | 1:13:53-1:14:03
“The difference between getting three and a half degrees warmer and three or four and two and a half, that might save a billion people living…”
Barack Obama Discusses Leadership, Democracy, and AI at Hamilton College | Uploaded April 7, 2025 | 1:14:10-1:14:26