Former President Barack Obama avoided referencing Democrats’ bruising election defeats during a forum with former German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
The pair’s conversation at the Anthem in Washington, D.C., on Monday marked the first time Obama stepped into the spotlight since Vice President Kamala Harris lost the election to President-elect Donald Trump. At one point, the former president was forced to respond to a heckler in a moment reminiscent of his time on the campaign trail.
Obama campaigned for Harris this fall, at one point chastising black men for their lack of enthusiasm for the vice president. However, he avoided making any overt references to the election during his appearance on Monday evening. His silence comes as some Democrats, including Obama’s own former homeland security secretary, have argued his influence over the party is fading.
Instead of discussing how the Democratic Party could move forward after losing the White House and Senate, Obama reflected upon what inspired him to enter politics and questioned Merkel about her career as a German lawmaker.
The pair’s conversation, which centered on Merkel’s new book, Freedom: Memories 1954-2021, had to be paused when a disrupter in the crowd shouted at Obama, trying to ask him a question near the end of the event.
“People came to listen to Angela Merkel and not you, young lady,” he said. “You can organize your own event, and people can come to listen to you and your questions. But right now, they’re here to listen to Angela Merkel, so be respectful.”
Obama’s retorts were enough to drown out the heckler, for which he was applauded, but it was clear the former president grew frustrated with the interruption.
Obama was president during a portion of Merkel’s tenure as Germany’s leader. The pair reflected on their experiences getting into politics during the event.
“I wasn’t raised in a political family, and it wasn’t a focus of my attention. Basically, nothing was a focus of my attention during high school, other than basketball and girls and fun,” Obama said, later saying that “the path was a little bit winding for me; trying to bring about change came first, and then politics was just one possible means of doing it.”
Merkel dwelt on the challenges she felt she faced as a woman in German politics.
“When I entered politics and was a candidate for the chancellorship, I realized rather quickly that there was a reservation. People thought, ‘Will a woman be able to do that?’” she reminisced.
Although Merkel also worked with Trump during his first term in office and offered a scathing review of him in her new book, she, like Obama, avoided mentioning Trump.
Obama did make several subtle references to the current political environment in the U.S.
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“Unfortunately, our politics doesn’t always … partly because of changes in media, you don’t have a common conversation,” he said. “It becomes harder and harder, I think, for people to feel that they can reach out and be curious about others.”
“I think that so much of the challenge that we have now in our politics is, how do we get people to feel as if they are genuinely heard, genuinely seen, genuinely respected?” Obama added.