Bill O'Reilly interviews president Obama before the Super Bowl: 'Once my Bears lost, I don't pick sides'

By Emi Kolawole

Watch the latest video at video.foxnews.com

President Obama sat down with FOX News host Bill O'Reilly on Sunday for a live interview that aired during pre-game coverage of the Super Bowl on local FOX broadcast stations.

The interview, which was preceded by a series advertisement-programming hybrids sponsored by E-Trade and Pizza Hut, showed the "O'Reilly Factor" host and the president sitting in the White House, one-on-one.

O'Reilly started with Egypt, asking the president when embattled Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak would leave office.

"Only he knows what he's going to do," Obama said. "Egypt is not going to go back to what it was. The Egyptian people want freedom. They want free and fair elections ... and so what we've said is you've got to start a transition now."

O'Reilly pressed the president to say, if he knew, when Mubarak would leave. "We can say that the time is now for you to start making a change in that country," Obama said.





"He has been a good partner when it comes to the peace with Israel," Obama said, adding that Mubarak was aware of certain U.S. foreign relations plans.

"He knows a lot of bad things about us," O'Reilly said. "So I'm just worried that he might go off the reservation. "

The conversation then turned to the question of the Muslim Brotherhood, a non-secular faction that is currently involved in talks with the Egyptian government. "I think that the Muslim Brotherhood is one faction in Egypt," Obama said. "There are a whole bunch of secular folks in Egypt...educators, civil society in Egypt that want to come forward as well.

"What I want is a representative government in Egypt," Obama said, when pressed as to whether he would want the Muslim Brotherhood becoming the leading political party.

Discussion then turned to the health-care reform law and a recent decision by a Florida court judge to strike down the president's signature reform effort. "I think the judge in Florida was wrong," said Obama, citing 12 other judges who had thrown out suits challenging the law. When O'Reilly said it would go to the Supreme Court, Obama countered that legal challenges still had other levels of the judicial system to go through.

"I'm not prepared to go back to a day when," if you have a pre-existing condition you "can't get help."

O'Reilly then read an editorial from the Wall Street Journal that described the president as being open to a re-distribution of wealth.

"The Wall Street Journal would probably paint you as a pretty left-wing guy," Obama said, when O'Reilly finished reading.

O'Reilly then claimed a majority of Americans disapproved of the health-care law, asking the president for his take. "Actually, I think it's pretty evenly divided, Bill," Obama said.

Obama and O'Reilly continued to spar over the nature of the health-care law, with O'Reilly claiming that many Americans feel that the president was intruding on their freedoms, "I give you credit, you've got a pretty big viewership," Obama said, again countering the claim that a majority of Americans did not support the law.

O'Reilly then asked whether the president was moving towards the political center, joking, "We were set up over there and they moved you a little bit to the center."

"Now, our focus is not on re-fighting the battles of the last two years," Obama said. "I'm the same guy and my practical focus...is how do we out-innovate...out-compete the rest of the world."

Asked about the worst part of the job of being president, Obama joked, "First of all, I got the jacket on on Super Bowl Sunday," later saying that the biggest problem was "being in the bubble."

"Over time you feel like you're not able to have a spontaneous conversation with folks," Obama said.

"I'm a lot grayer, that's for sure," the president continued when O'Reilly said others had told him Obama had changed.

"I think they'd say I'm basically the same guy as when I came in," said the president.



"Can I tell you what they say?" asked O'Reilly, "You're much more guarded."

"There's no doubt that the weight of the office has an impact," said Obama going on to say that the more he was in the job the more he enjoyed it.

"Does it disturb you that so many people hate you?" O'Reilly said.

"The people who dislike you don't know you," said Obama. "The folks who hate you they don't know you. What they hate is whatever funhouse mirror image of you that's out there. So you don't take it personally."

O'Reilly ended by turning back to the night's main event and the question of who would win.

"Once my Bears lost, I don't pick sides," Obama said. O'Reilly then asked if the president cared about the game. Obama said he did and that he wanted "a good game."

"I have to get out of here, because I'll frighten [J. Lo]," O'Reilly said, referring to singer Jennifer Lopez who was attending the White House Super Bowl party.

"I schmooze with everbody once they come," said Obama, insisting that once the game started he would focus and not allow guests to interrupt.

O'Reilly then plugged a longer, taped interview to air Monday.

