Obama urges young men not to give up on the political process in new podcast with NBA players

Source: NBC News

Oct. 22, 2024, 11:46 PM EDT


Former President Barack Obama made a direct plea for young men not to get frustrated at the slow pace of political progress as he made the case to support Vice President Kamala Harris for president on the inaugural episode of a new podcast hosted by NBA players.

“A lot of young people — a lot of young men — they get frustrated, and they say, ‘Well, nothing’s happened,’” Obama told NBA All-Star Tyrese Halliburton, 24, and producer Tommy Alter in a clip first shared with NBC News. “But let’s say — when I was president I didn’t cure racism, I didn’t eliminate poverty. But 50 million people got health insurance. That didn’t happen before, and that saved lives and made people’s lives better.”

Obama added that the reason to vote is that there is somebody “who can see you, knows your life, cares about you,” who will be making “a million decisions” that will hopefully “make your lives a little bit better each year.” The podcast, “The Young Man and the Three,” is a rebrand of a show that was called “The Old Man and the Three,” which had more than a million YouTube subscribers, with an overwhelming young and male audience.

Obama also pointed to his administration’s efforts to change how nonviolent drug cases are federally prosecuted, saying, “During my presidency, crime went down, and the number of people who were in federal prisons also went down at the same time. It didn’t solve criminal bias or racial bias in the criminal justice system, but it made it better.” Framing the election as “one of these moments where we’ve got to kind of decide who are we as a country,” Obama referred to issues like health care, the minimum wage, civil rights and policing, warning they are all on the ballot.

Read more: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/obama-young-men-new-podcast-nba-players-rcna176716