AXELROD: Just a couple more things. Are you worried about the Corbynization (ph) of the Democratic Party? Saw the Labour Party just sort of disintegrated in the face of their defeat and move so far left that it's, you know, in a very — in a very frail state. And there is an impulse to respond to — to the power of [Donald] Trump by, you know, being as edgy . ..

OBAMA: On the left.

AXELROD: . . . on the left.

OBAMA: I don't worry about that, partly because I think that the Democratic Party has stayed pretty grounded in fact and reality. Trump emerged out of a decade, maybe two, in which the Republican Party, because it had to say no for tactical reasons, moved further and further and further away from what we would consider to be a — a basic consensus around things like climate change or how the economy works.

And it started filling up with all kinds of conspiracy theorizing that became kind of common wisdom or conventional wisdom within the Republican Party base. That hasn't happened in the Democratic Party. I think people like the passion that Bernie brought, but Bernie Sanders is a pretty centrist politician relative to . ..

AXELROD: Corbyn.

OBAMA: Relative to Corbyn or relative to some of the Republicans.

AXELROD: Oh, I see what you're saying . ..

OBAMA: And — and so — so I don't worry about that. What I do worry about is that in an era where we are looking for simple solutions that — and want 1000 percent of what we want and when we want it, that we end up starting to shut ourselves off from different points of view, shutting down debate, becoming more dogmatic, becoming more brittle.