Substack journalist discusses former President Obama fundraising for 'shrine' to himself on 'Tucker Carlson Tonight'
This is an unofficial transcript meant for reference. Accuracy is not guaranteed.
As you may have
read, Barack Obama was all set
to host a party for himself
worthy of an Ottoman sultan on
his spread on Marthas vineyard.
Five hundred people invited hundreds of
servants, possibly some writing
elements or carrying his litter.
Now weve learned that the party
has been scaled back, but you
know it: hasnt been scaled back
Barack Obamas ambition or his
desire for your money.
Courting the longtime Obama
advisor Valerie. You should
still pay somehow
for Barack Obamas birthday
gift im, asking you to chip
in six or sixty dollars to help bring us
the Obama Presidential Center to
life in Chicago.
Is this the ugly face of
neoliberalism?
That is a rhetorical question?
Glenn Greenwald writes on sub
stat. He keeps tabs on the Obama
Presidential Center and he joins
us tonight
thanks so much for coming on
Barack Obama has gotten very
rich from Netflix,
not sure what hes doing for
them, but he certainly is rich.
Why is he asking for more money?
Now
yeah, I mean. First of all, I
think we should stop and comment
on the fact that public
officials, when they leave power,
routinely get not just rich but
like they turn into plutocrats
like tycoons and Beasley
thats,
its not just Obama,
by the way,
yeah, not just Obama,
the Clintons Tony Blair,
George Bush, all of them have
become extremely wealthy once
they leave power, which I think
is a big problem in a democracy,
but leaving that to the side
the idea of presidential
libraries originally that
didnt exist for like one hundred and fifty years,
because the idea was just a
private citizen, you go serve in
public office and then you go
back to private life.
You dont need like a shrine to
your existence
when what happened was it was
born of good motives,
Frank and Roosevelt knew he had
gone through all of these
historically momentous events
like the great depression and
World WAR Ii, and he said you
know these papers of mine dont
belong to me. They belong to the
public and historians lets
just kind of create a library
where historians can go study
for it and over the years it
became bigger and bigger and
bigger, and what Obama is doing
is unprecedented. Not only is it
so grandiose in size so much
bigger than anyone elses, it
has four different buildings and
235 foot Museum tower in his
honor.
Its like, not even a roman
emperor, would do that, but he
has also removed it from
record keeping system, which is
a was been administered by the
national archives that ensures
that the papers belong to the
public.
The idea on the first place
they now belong to him and so to
keep control of it, hes raising
money from people in the middle
of a pandemic and joblessness
and eviction crisis right as he
was planning a multimillion
dollar birthday bash at his
twelve dollars million estate, which is his
second weekend home on Marthas
Vineyard.
It is, as you say, the ethos of
neoliberalism leaders get rich
at the expense of everybody else
else.
How long before we
have mausoleums with embalmed
bodies of our leaders through
which we file. You know we
sent schoolkids to file
respective respectfully and
kind of pay their respects to
the cheerleaders of old
yeah,
and I mean I think, a good
question is well traditionally.
The ruling class has been very
reluctant to be so flamboyant
about their abuse of power in
their accumulation of wealth,
because that can create a lot of
instability in the society when
people know the extent to which
they are being exploited and
abused,
theyve generally been more
humble about it or tried to hide
it, but Heres Obama throwing an
enormous party Steven Spielberg
was coming. Pearl jam was going
to play, and then you have verily
Jarrod his lifelong aid, saying
hey reach into your pocket and
give us money to build a shrine
to Obama
at some point. The question is:
how long is the population going
to tolerate that
thats right? At
least televangelists promised
salvation at least to get
something out of it?
Glenn Greenwald Great, to see it.
Transcript generated on 2021-08-05.