Barack Obama’s presidency was like no other, and so is his new presidential center on the South Side of Chicago.
The Obamas are reflecting on their time in office, with former President Barack Obama saying he considers the Affordable Care Act as the greatest accomplishment of his two terms.
“For all the resistance from our political opposition, the Affordable Care Act has now helped 50, 60 million people, and continues to help people even though the current Congress has tried to weaken it and taken away some of the subsidies that were really helping a lot of working people,” Obama told ABC News’ Robin Roberts on “Good Morning America,” which aired Wednesday, June 17. “I’m very proud of the message we sent to the country that we’re representing everybody.”
Obama, who appeared on the show with his wife, former first lady Michelle Obama, in what ABC says is the married couple’s first joint network TV interview since leaving office in 2017, was conversing with Roberts ahead of the opening of the Obama Presidential Center in Chicago on Friday, June 19.
‘People are a little discouraged right now,’ Obama says
A decade in the making, the center takes visitors through the Obamas journey from Chicago’s South Side to the White House. At the center’s groundbreaking in 2021, Obama said the center won’t just be an “exercise in nostalgia,” but “the world’s premier institution” for developing the next generation of civic leaders.
“People are a little discouraged right now,” Obama said during the “Good Morning America” interview. “But, again, I believe that we go through these cycles, and there’s going to be a younger generation that pops up and there are going to be leaders who pop up.”
Echoing his views, Michelle Obama said her husband’s core messages of “hope” and “change,” central to his first presidential campaign, remain possible.
“People just have to be fed up enough. They have to want more,” she said. “And I think the presidential center hopefully will remind people of just how close we are to moving this country in the direction that we want to move it in.”
How to watch new interview with the Obamas
The ABC News special “The Obama Legacy: First Joint Interview Post-White House” will be available to stream on Disney+ and Hulu on Thursday, June 18.
Watch the Obamas on ‘Good Morning America’
Contributing: Susan Page, USA TODAY / Kinsey Crowley, USA TODAY NETWORK
Saman Shafiq is a trending news reporter for USA TODAY. Reach her at sshafiq@usatodayco.com and follow her on X and Instagram @saman_shafiq7.
