Former President Barack Obama is telling Stephen Colbert not to rule out a run for the White House.
In a mostly light-hearted interview to the soon-to-be-jobless late-night host, Obama suggested President Donald Trump has lowered the bar for a presidential candidate.
“You have the hair,” Obama said, referring to the funny man’s well-coiffed appearance.
“For the record, I think it’s a stupid idea. How dumb do you think it is for people to say that I should run for president?” Colbert asked.
“The bar has changed,” the former president replied, who avoided mentioning Trump by name. “I think that you could perform significantly better than some folks that we’ve seen.”
Obama sat down with Colbert in the ex-president’s first appearance at the new Obama Presidential Center in Chicago, which is set to open to the public next month.
The former president turned serious when he suggested Trump has sought to turn the federal criminal justice system into a weapon for his own personal vendettas against perceived political enemies.
“The idea is that the attorney general is the people’s lawyer, it’s not the president’s consigliere,” Obama said.
Obama added the nation would have some work to do when Trump leaves office to ensure the independence of the Department of Justice.
“You can’t have a situation in which whoever’s in charge of the government starts using that to go after their political enemies or reward their friends,” he said.
The first Black president praised New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani as an “extraordinary talent” who has the underrated ability to speak to voters about making their lives better “without all the gobbledegook.”
Speaking frankly, Obama claimed his adopted hometown of Chicago is 100% correct when it comes to the popular prohibition of ketchup on hot dogs, saying it’s “never” OK to add the tomato condiment to wieners.
Obama joked about his recent widely reported statements that he might have seen evidence of extraterrestrial life or alien-piloted UFOs.
He said there’s no way any president could keep a lid on explosive evidence that aliens are real.
“For those of you who still think that we’ve got little green men underground somewhere — one of the things you learn as president is government is terrible at keeping secrets,” Obama said.
Colbert is counting down the days to the end of his decade-long run as the host of The Late Show. CBS has announced the show’s last episode will be on May 21.
Trump has also called on ABC to fire Jimmy Kimmel, Colbert’s fellow late night host, over his tasteless joke that first lady Melania Trump looks like an “expectant widow.” –New York Daily News/Tribune News Service
