Overview
- The Incite Institute at Columbia, in cooperation with the Obama Foundation, posted the complete archive online with more than 450 interviews totaling over 1,100 hours of audio and video.
- Senior aides recount dismissing Trump as a “con man,” “clown,” and “laughingstock,” acknowledging they did not anticipate his 2016 Electoral College victory.
- Accounts revisit the 2011 White House Correspondents’ Dinner and describe how birtherism and evolving social media dynamics shaped their understanding of his appeal.
- The interviews detail domestic achievements such as the economic rescue, auto bailout, the Affordable Care Act, and the bin Laden raid, alongside foreign-policy shortfalls in Crimea, Syria, Libya, and the rise of ISIS.
- The collection omits interviews with Barack Obama, Michelle Obama, and Joe Biden but includes figures like Hillary Clinton, John F. Kerry, Robert M. Gates, and Paul D. Ryan, with staff recalling Obama consoling a tearful team after Election Day 2016.