Barack Obama being elected. I think about how… um… how my sons will grow up only knowing a black President. [Wells with tears] I can't explain how that's changed America. There's an optimism now that wasn't there for black people.

In the first day of the fighting, America's new president, Joe Biden, called me. We had known each other for close to forty years, from the time we both came to Washington, he as young senator from Delaware, and I as deputy chief of Israel's embassy to the United States. Four days after the 2020 elections Biden was declared president-elect. In the twenty four hours after that declaration I followed twenty other world leaders in offering my congratulations. This elicited the ire of President Trump, who to this day believes that I was the first to do so.

I would say it's a flip side of Barack Obama. He was a community activist or a black activist. He's been in the church for 20 years that — and one of the first principles of that church is that they are, quote, "true to Africa," loyal to Africa. There is nothing wrong with Barack Obama working and having a long career advancing what he sees as the black community interests or the black perceived interests as a group, collective interest, but I did see it as kind of odd that a man of that stripe would become president of the United States. It seems like — I think I should endorse him for president.

Mouthpiece for a racist, imperialistic American foreign policy controlled by generals and corporate elites. Black people did not vote for Barack Obama for him to bomb an African country, Libya. They elected him to stand up like a man against the forces of imperialism. They voted for him to bail out Harlem, where there is 50 percent Black male unemployment, like they bailed out Wall Street.

He once asked me if I could name a country run by a black person that wasn’t a "shithole." This was when Barack Obama was president of the United States. While we were once driving through a struggling neighborhood in Chicago, he commented that only black people could live that way. And, he told me that black people would never vote for him because they were too stupid.

[About Barack Obama being elected president in 2008:] I didn't think it made some deep statement about America. I'm in Los Angeles and in, I think it was 1969, LA, which was the third largest city at the time, voted for a black mayor and voted for him four times. He ran twice for governor of California, the largest state in the union, and barely lost both times. And so I thought a statement was made a long time ago of how fair America is and Obama just came along and benefited from it. [...] [According to a 2007 Gallup poll examining prejudice against race, gender, age and religion], Obama had a lower hurdle, an easier path to the White House than [his opponents Hillary Clinton, John McCain, and Mitt Romney], who were far more well funded and far more experienced and far better known. So don't give me this crap about how Obama somehow made a statement about how fair America is. America has been fair for a very very long period of time and he simply benefited from the changing racial attitudes that Americans have been engaging in for decades.

Electing the speaker was easy, because we would support the ANC, but then the next test was, are they going to support me? Because they've never supported any other party. You’re overwhelmed because you don’t know. And it took long, I was only elected that night, a bit of an unreal moment

A guy called up, and in his lead, he said, "We've talked before. I used to be with US but now I'm for SELF." And I was like, "I guess we know everything now, don't we?" … I kind of laughed and I went, "I guess a lot of people are like that." And he paused and went, "Uhhh… what?" And I said, "Oh, nothing."

How, for example, did Obama get elected as a complete unknown? ... There is a one word answer: slavery. America's national guilt over slavery continues to benefit Obama, who ironically is not himself descended from slaves.

I am an American. Black. Conservative. I don't use "African American", because I'm American, I'm black and I'm conservative. I don't like people trying to label me. "African American" is socially acceptable for some people, but I am not some people. ... Barack Obama is more of an international. I think he's out of the mainstream and always has been. Look, he was raised in Kenya, his mother was white from Kansas and her family had an influence on him, it’s true, but his dad was Kenyan, and when he was going to school he got a lot of fellowships, scholarships, he stayed in the academic environment for a long time. He spent most of his career as an intellectual.

:I was the 2008 endorsed candidate against Joe Biden and I won in two counties. We didn't have the support of our liberal Republicans then.

In January 2008, I joined my uncle, Senator Edward M. Kennedy, to endorse Barack Obama for president. We believed America was ready for a new generation of leadership, for a president who would inspire us, as my father did, to believe in the power of ordinary people to do extraordinary things, and the nobility of public service. We face a very different world today. President Trump has done immense damage to our institutions, exploited our differences, and shredded our credibility around the world. I am excited by the Democratic candidates and the ideas they have put forward. But this year, it’s not just policy proposals that are on the ballot. Our fundamental values are at stake as never before in my lifetime.

This is rough. Last time Trump won, it felt like a grotesque fluke. This time, America knew exactly what they were getting and they went hard for him anyway. It's like that famous quote: "Those who do not learn from history... are me! Hey, that's me! Which reminds me, I wanted to look something up. Hey Google, did Joe Biden drop out of the election?"

I busted my ass for Obama. I mean, I took my radio show on the road. I did town halls. Talked to the people. I turned the microphone over to the working folk of America. I asked them what they thought about healthcare, what they thought about the economy, what we thought about staying in wars forever. I went after it. And President Obama, he don't come to Ed. He goes to Bret Baier on Fox News in my time slot. Now, my show's gonna be okay. But if you were in my position, would you say, "What's that all about?" Loyalty.