Obama gives Harry right answer
Prince Harry snagged former U.S. president Barack Obama for an interview as part of his stint as a guest editor for the BBC Radio 4 news program Today that aired Wednesday, discussing topics spanning current events and Harry’s upcoming wedding to Meghan Markle.
In one part of the interview, which took place during the Invictus Games in Toronto in September, Harry asked Obama whether he prefers Suits, the American TV drama that starred the prince’s fiancée, over The Good Wife. “Suits, obviously,” Obama said. “Great answer,” Harry replied. Harry briefly spoke about his Christmas spent with Markle and the Royal Family, who “loved having her there” for the day in Sandringham, Norfolk.
As for the royal wedding on May 19, Harry wouldn’t confirm whether Obama would be on the guest list, saying: “I don’t know about that, we haven’t even put the invite or the guest list together. Who knows if he’s going to be invited or not. I wouldn’t want to ruin that surprise.”
Elsewhere in their conversation, Obama didn’t mention U.S. President Donald Trump’s name while speaking about how social media can drive people apart, which, he said, complicates “how the country moves forward.”
“All of us in leadership have to find ways to recreate a common space on the internet,” Obama said.
“One of the dangers of the internet is people can have entirely different realities. They can be just cocooned in information that reinforces their current biases.”
Obama stressed the importance of a “common space” on the internet that provides news that all Americans from different political leanings can trust.
“It used to be, in the United States for example, we had three television stations and everybody watched Walter Cronkite or David Brinkley or whoever the chief anchor was,” he said, recalling the golden age of TV news.
“Everybody had a common set of facts, and so there might be conservatives and liberals, but people could generally agree on a baseline of reality.”
The former president also looked back on his legacy, calling health-care reform one of his biggest accomplishments and addressing criticism that he was too “dispassionate and professorial and analytical” while on the job.
“I don’t think I can do my job well, or that any leader can do their job well if they don’t have the capacity to feel deeply for the people they’re serving,” he said, again potentially alluding to Trump’s current stint in office.
“The great danger that often befalls leaders is that the people they’re supposed to be serving become abstractions. If you don’t understand that what you do every day has a profound impact on somebody else, then you shouldn’t be there.”