Former President Barack Obama made a direct plea for young men not to get frustrated at the slow pace of political progress as he made the case to support Vice President Kamala Harris for president on the inaugural episode of a new podcast hosted by NBA players.
“A lot of young people — a lot of young men — they get frustrated, and they say, ‘Well, nothing’s happened,’” Obama told NBA All-Star Tyrese Halliburton, 24, and producer Tommy Alter in a clip first shared with NBC News. “But let’s say — when I was president I didn’t cure racism, I didn’t eliminate poverty. But 50 million people got health insurance. That didn’t happen before, and that saved lives and made people’s lives better.”
Obama added that the reason to vote is that there is somebody “who can see you, knows your life, cares about you,” who will be making “a million decisions” that will hopefully “make your lives a little bit better each year.”
The podcast, “The Young Man and the Three,” is a rebrand of a show that was called “The Old Man and the Three,” which had more than a million YouTube subscribers, with an overwhelming young and male audience.
Obama also pointed to his administration’s efforts to change how nonviolent drug cases are federally prosecuted, saying, “During my presidency, crime went down, and the number of people who were in federal prisons also went down at the same time. It didn’t solve criminal bias or racial bias in the criminal justice system, but it made it better.”
Framing the election as “one of these moments where we’ve got to kind of decide who are we as a country,” Obama referred to issues like health care, the minimum wage, civil rights and policing, warning they are all on the ballot.
“I don’t think it’s any secret that I think Donald Trump is not somebody who is going to work hard on behalf of ordinary people,” he said. “I think his agenda is basically about himself. His status is ego and self-promotion.”
Harris has ramped up efforts to earn the support of Black and Latino men, releasing demographic-specific policy proposals in recent weeks. Harris appeared on the “All the Smoke” podcast hosted by former NBA players Matt Barnes and Stephen Jackson this month.
Obama has been a key part of this strategy. While public opinion polls show that he is viewed favorably by a majority of voters in key swing states, he got backlash for “scolding” Black men at a stop in Pittsburgh this month, when he said he believes some are “coming up with all kinds of reasons and excuses” to sit out of the election because they “just aren’t feeling the idea of having a woman as president.”
“One of the things that is a challenge for this younger generation, including, I would almost say particularly, young men — and young men of color — is that y’all came of age, you were still in school when I was president and the financial crisis hit,” Obama said on the podcast, also mentioning the Covid pandemic.
“A lot of young men today are coming out of school feeling like it’s going to be hard for me to match what my parents achieved, you know? The factories have closed, or a lot of the jobs that used to be available if you didn’t have a college degree aren’t there,” he continued. “But you know, the thing I always try to explain to folks is politics is not going to solve all problems all at once.”
Obama has been barnstorming battleground states for the Democratic ticket, rallying Tuesday with its vice presidential candidate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, in Madison, Wisconsin, and separately with rapper Eminen in Detroit. Obama will rally with Harris for the first time this cycle Thursday in Georgia.
