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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cA lot of young people \u2014 a lot of young men \u2014 they get frustrated, and they say, \u2018Well, nothing\u2019s happened,\u2019\u201d Obama told NBA All-Star Tyrese Halliburton, 24, and producer Tommy Alter <\/strong>in a clip first shared with NBC News. \u201cBut let\u2019s say \u2014 when I was president I didn\u2019t cure racism, I didn\u2019t eliminate poverty. But 50 million people got health insurance. That didn\u2019t happen before, and that saved lives and made people\u2019s lives better.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Obama added that the reason to vote is that there is somebody \u201cwho can see you, knows your life, cares about you,\u201d who will be making \u201ca million decisions\u201d that will hopefully \u201cmake your lives a little bit better each year.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n The podcast, \u201cThe Young Man and the Three<\/a>,\u201d is a rebrand of a show that was called \u201cThe Old Man and the Three,\u201d which had more than a million YouTube subscribers, with an overwhelming young and male audience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Obama also pointed to his administration\u2019s efforts to change how nonviolent drug cases are federally prosecuted, saying, \u201cDuring my presidency, crime went down, and the number of people who were in federal prisons also went down at the same time. It didn\u2019t solve criminal bias or racial bias in the criminal justice system, but it made it better.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Framing the election as \u201cone of these moments where we\u2019ve got to kind of decide who are we as a country,\u201d Obama referred to issues like health care, the minimum wage, civil rights and policing, warning they are all on the ballot. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI don\u2019t think it\u2019s any secret that I think Donald Trump is not somebody who is going to work hard on behalf of ordinary people,\u201d he said. \u201cI think his agenda is basically about himself. His status is ego and self-promotion.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Harris has ramped up efforts<\/a> to earn the support of Black and Latino men, releasing demographic-specific policy proposals in recent weeks. Harris appeared on the \u201cAll the Smoke\u201d podcast hosted by former NBA players Matt Barnes and Stephen Jackson this month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Obama has been a key part of this strategy. While\u2002public opinion polls<\/a> show that he is viewed favorably by a majority of voters in key swing states, he got backlash<\/a> for \u201cscolding\u201d Black men at a stop in Pittsburgh this month, when he said he believes some are \u201ccoming up with all kinds of reasons and excuses\u201d to sit out of the election because they \u201cjust aren\u2019t feeling the idea of having a woman as president.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cOne of the things that is a challenge for this younger generation, including, I would almost say particularly, young men \u2014 and young men of color \u2014 is that y\u2019all came of age, you were still in school when I was president and the financial crisis hit,\u201d Obama said on the podcast, also mentioning the Covid pandemic. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cA lot of young men today are coming out of school feeling like it\u2019s 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\u2019t have a college degree aren\u2019t there,\u201d he continued. \u201cBut you know, the thing I always try to explain to folks is politics is not going to solve all problems all at once.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n