Obama doubts The Donald can govern effectively via Twitter, admits mistakes

WASHINGTON — President Obama used his final national television interview as president to express doubts that Donald Trump will be able to effectively govern by firing off tweets, and offered some advice about the president-elect’s feud with the intelligence community.

In an interview shown last night on CBS’s “60 Minutes,” Obama also acknowledged some mistakes — a rarity for an outgoing president. Among them were missteps he made in dealing with Congress.

“I will confess that I didn’t fully appreciate the ways in which individual senators or members of Congress now are pushed to the extremes by their voter bases,” Obama said. “I did not expect, particularly in the midst of crisis, just how severe that partisanship would be.”

Obama appeared to be referring to the financial collapse he inherited upon taking office.

“I became a lightning rod for some partisan battles,” he said. “By almost every measure, the country is significantly better off than when I came in ... But I’m the first to acknowledge that I did not crack the code in terms of reducing this partisan fever.”

Obama also questioned whether Trump’s use of social media as his primary means of communicating with the American people — and Congress — will translate into a successful and productive presidency.

“We are moving into an era where a lot of people get their information through tweets and sound bites and some headline that comes over their phone. And I think that there’s a power in that,” Obama said. “There’s also a danger, what generates a headline or stirs up a controversy and gets attention isn’t the same as the process required to actually solve the problem.”