Obama: 'I'll worry about my legacy later'

David Jackson | USA TODAY

We're at the stage of the Obama presidency where people are starting to use the L word: Legacy.

And like many of his predecessors, President Obama says he's working on the here and now.

"I'll worry about my legacy later, or I'll let historians worry about my legacy," Obama told The New York Times in an interview.

Obama used the Times interview to promote his economic, immigration, and health care policies, and argue that the economy is poised for a strong recovery unless congressional Republicans force a "crisis" like a government shutdown or a freeze on the debt ceiling.

"I think if I'm arguing for entirely different policies -- and Congress ends up pursuing policies that I think don't make sense and we get a bad result -- it's hard to argue that'd be my legacy," Obama said.

The Times also reported that Obama talked about how widening income inequality and the lingering impact of the 2008 financial crisis has frayed the nation's social fabric, including race relations.

Obama said upward mobility "was part and parcel of who we were as Americans. And that's what's been eroding over the last 20, 30 years, well before the financial crisis."

The president also told the Times:

"If we don't do anything, then growth will be slower than it should be. Unemployment will not go down as fast as it should. Income inequality will continue to rise. That's not a future that we should accept. ...

"Racial tensions won't get better; they may get worse, because people will feel as if they've got to compete with some other group to get scraps from a shrinking pot. If the economy is growing, everybody feels invested. Everybody feels as if we're rolling in the same direction."