In a lengthy interview recapping some of the pivotal moments of his administration, President Barack Obama told New York magazine that he hopes his successors will not have an “imperial presidency.”
The president said he prefers a “functional,” collaborative federal government, an option he said didn’t often exist for the nearly eight years of his White House.
“If there’s one wish that I have for future presidents, it’s not an imperial presidency, it is a functional, sensible majority-and-opposition being able to make decisions based on facts and policy and compromise,” Obama told Jonathan Chait. “That would have been my preference for the majority of my presidency. It was an option that wasn’t always available. But I hope the American people continue to understand that that’s how the system should work.”
Obama’s opponents have criticized him for his willingness to use executive actions instead of Congress to make immigration and health care policy. Even one of his would-be Democratic heirs, former presidential candidate and Virginia senator Jim Webb, said last year that “there would be a major difference between my administration and the Obama administration,” and it would concern “the use of executive authority.”
The president blamed Republican partisanship for forcing his hand to pick up a pen and a phone. He told Chait that GOP lawmakers couldn’t just admit to their constituencies that he’s “‘a perfectly reasonable guy, but we just can’t work with him because our base thinks he’s the Antichrist.'”
Instead, Obama said, “It’s a lot easier for them to say, ‘Oh, the guy’s not listening to us,’ or, ‘He’s uncompromising.'”
Read Chait’s interview here.
