"If you watch Fox News, you are living on a different planet than if you listen to NPR,” former President Barack Obama said. | Charles Rex Arbogast/AP Photo Obama: Presidents need to watch their behavior

Barack Obama’s advice on the presidency: Watch your behavior — because everyone else is watching it, and taking cues from it.

“One of the things that Michelle figured out, in some ways faster than I did — was part of your ability to lead the country doesn’t have to do with legislation, doesn’t have to do with regulations, it has to do with shaping attitudes, shaping culture, increasing awareness,” Obama said in a conversation recorded last fall but released on Friday as the first episode of David Letterman’s new Netflix show, “My Next Guest Needs No Introduction.”


As he’s done since the end of the 2016 election, Obama ducked any direct comment on President Donald Trump, even when prompted by Letterman directly in the friendly hourlong interview.

“Let’s just say there is a democracy, and the voting process is being monkeyed with by foreign countries,” Letterman said, before Obama interrupted him with a sarcastic, “hypothetically.”

Letterman continued: “What is more damaging to that democracy? Would it be diminishment, by the head of the democracy, of [the] press” — prompting a smile and chuckle from Obama — “or would it be somebody screwing around with the actual voting process?"

Obama made a broader point.

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“What the Russians exploited, but it was already here, is we are operating in completely different information universes. If you watch Fox News, you are living on a different planet than if you listen to NPR,” Obama said.

The interview took place onstage at the Amsterdam campus of City College in New York, which Obama pointed out was where he first tried community organizing, in a failed effort. Most of the conversation focused on memories of his time in office, and the occasional self-critical comment, with Obama remarking at one point, “When you become president and you’re in the Oval Office, you feel, ‘OK, now I have to act presidential.’ And we lost track of what had gotten us there, and that was our ability to tell stories and relate to people.”

The interview is cross-cut with an interview Letterman conducted with Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), while walking across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama.

The congressman was circumspect in criticizing Trump.

“It is a major setback to the hopes, the aspirations, the dreams of a people — not just African-Americans, but all Americans,” he told Letterman, calling Trump “a threat to the planet.”

Lewis said he is certain Trump will be overcome and “we will redeem the soul of America.”

Letterman pushed both guests on the importance of voting rights, with Obama arguing, “we’re the only advanced democracy that deliberately discourages people from voting.”

More concisely and directly than he’s generally done, including at the summit officially launching the Obama Foundation in November, Obama explained how he saw his post-presidency efforts shaping the future of politics and civic engagement.

During the civil rights era, some people “who probably knew better" were silent, "and so they just let things continue as they were. The interesting thing is, the reverse happens, because we’re social animals. If we see others who are volunteering, then they think, ‘Well, maybe I’ll volunteer,’” Obama said. “If they see others voting, ‘Maybe I’ll vote.’ If they feel as if there’s a community around them that says, ‘This is the norm for us to feel like we have a say in our lives and we can connect with people even if they don’t look exactly like we do, or worship in the exact same way, or have the same sexual orientation, but we have these common interests involved, and that’s the habits of the heart that we’ve developed’ — it works that way too.”

Throughout, Letterman repeated how much he admires Obama and wishes he were still president.

“If it were not for the Constitution, there’d be Michelle,” Obama said toward the end, sparking huge applause from the audience and a reaction from the host, thinking that he was teasing a presidential run by the former first lady.

Obama quashed that quickly.

“Michelle would leave me,” he clarified.