On Friday night, The Washington Post dropped what many called a bombshell report: the CIA has concluded that Russia interfered in the 2016 election on Donald Trump's behalf. But listening to President Obama on The Daily Show last night, you wouldn't know it. As the president reminded Trevor Noah, the public has heard about the story since October, and the Republican nominee openly courted that interference when he asked that they hack his opponent and her campaign.

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Obama was almost blasé about the idea the Russians would engage in what he regards as fairly standard espionage. For him, the whole fiasco asks a larger question that has very little to do with the Russians at all:

"What is it about our political ecosystem, what is it about the state of our democracy, where the leaks of what were frankly not very interesting emails—that didn't have any explosive information in them ["The risotto was interesting," Noah interrupted.] ended up being an obsession. And the fact that the Russians were doing this was not an obsession. This was not a secret running up to the election. The president-elect in some of his political events specifically said to the Russians, 'hack Hillary's emails so we can finally figure out what's going on' and confirm our conspiracy theories."

This was a question of our priorities as a democratic people. Do we care about a candidate's qualifications, or what their campaign chairman puts in his risotto? Are we concerned with what policies they will put in place if elected, or whether they used a private email address? And most of all, do we care if they have obvious ties to a foreign government?

As a country, we may very well be lost. Kanye West was invited to meet with the president-elect at Trump Tower today, just a week or two after suffering a mental breakdown. Rick Perry, whom we last saw on Dancing with the Stars, was just tapped to head the Department of Energy, a government agency he once famously couldn't name.

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But while our campaigns have become just another football game, and politics just another form of entertainment, there will be real consequences. The president-elect has said he'stoo "smart" to need daily intelligence briefings on security threats to the country he will soon lead. (Obama thinks Trump may be saying one thing publicly and doing another privately.) As Obama indicated last night, he will make his voice heard on some aspects of that theoretical plan, even if they come during a time he has set aside to recharge his batteries:

"There may be occasions where, even in the first year, if I think core values of ours are being threatened—I've said this. If I thought a Muslim registry was being set up that violates the Constitution and violates who we are, and would make us less safe because it'd make it easier for groups like ISIL to recruit and radicalize homegrown terrorists—I might have to say something about that. If I saw DREAM Act kids, young people who were brought here as children, who are for all intents and purposes Americans, suddenly being rounded up, contrary to who we are as a nation of laws and a nation of immigrants—I might have to say something about that."

His voice will be needed.

Jack Holmes Politics Editor Jack Holmes is the Politics Editor at Esquire, where he writes daily and edits the Politics Blog with Charles P Pierce.

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