Obama predicts Clinton will face criticism for being ambitious if elected

President Barack Obama predicted Monday that Hillary Clinton will face conspiracies about her stamina and moods if she's elected America’s first female president next week.

In an interview on “Full Frontal with Samantha Bee,” Obama likened Clinton’s potential experience in the Oval Office to what he faced as the nation’s first black president, including the conspiracy propagated by now-Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump that Obama was born in Kenya.


“I think the equivalent will be: She’s tired, she’s moody, she’s being emotional, there’s something about her,” Obama said. “When men are ambitious, it’s just taken for granted. ‘Well, of course they should be ambitious.’ When women are ambitious, ‘Why?’ That theme, I think, will continue throughout her presidency, and it’s contributed to this notion that somehow she is hiding something.”

In the spirit of a Halloween interview, the 44th president joked that he was “dressed up as what happens when young people vote.” And he limited his “spooky” Halloween story to five words to describe what could happen if not enough voters turn out: “Donald Trump could be president.”

“OK, that was very scary,” Bee said. “We’ll make it even scarier for you: Supreme Court Justice Corey Lewandowski; Speaker of the House Louis Gohmert.”

“That was pretty scary,” Obama chuckled. “I’m not sure I’m gonna sleep well tonight.”

Obama appeared on Bee’s late-night program hoping to reach millennials to encourage them to vote. “It turns out that young people actually are more interested and engaged than I think we give them credit for. Sometimes they get cynical — hard to understand why after watching this campaign,” he quipped. “But Malia, my oldest, she actually voted for the first time. The pride that she took, I think, in casting her ballot is a pride that I think a lot of young people feel, but you gotta talk to them about the things that they care about.”

Clinton, he said, has a “very specific plan” about college affordability, for example, and her opponent doesn’t. “Young people have a bigger stake in this election than anybody. I would hope that you’d be willing to take about the same amount of time that you spend just looking through cat videos on your phone to make sure that democracy’s working,” he said as Bee joked she was “snapchatting myself as a bottlenose dolphin.”

For his part, Obama also tried to reach young voters via Snapchat on Tuesday. The president was featured on “Good Luck America” with Peter Hamby on the app’s Discover stories.

“Hold down the circle, like a video. Sasha gave me a tutorial, by the way,” Obama noted as Hamby and another man helped him record a Snapchat video. “All right, we good? People, this is Barack Obama. If I can figure out how to Snapchat, you can figure out how to go vote.”