Each of the four living former U.S. presidents said they had hope for America on the eve of its 250th birthday.
Former Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Joe Biden gathered in Philadelphia for a History Channel event featuring the group of “formers,” where they later sat for an interview with “Today” host Jenna Bush Hager, the daughter of the 43rd president.
Her father noted in his interview that “it can be boring” when all the presidents gather, but there is “great camaraderie, because we all share something special.”
Obama was asked what he liked best about being president. He said he got to meet the “widest possible cross section of the American people.”
“Every corner of this country is just full of really amazing, hard-working, decent people. And getting that broad overview of who we are as Americans, it made me much less cynical. It makes me less prone to think there’s a ‘us’ and a ‘they,’” he said.
Clinton said that when he met former President John F. Kennedy at 16 years old, he was inspired to return to Washington, D.C., as a politician one day.
“It made me realize that a president, even on a bad day, can do something good for somebody,” he said, adding he didn’t ever “dream” to one day be president.
Biden reiterated a similar sentiment, detailing the road from his middle-class childhood in Pennsylvania to Capitol Hill and the White House, saying it is a story about “what America is all about.”
“My dad used to say, ‘Look, Joey, everyone is entitled to a shot,’” Biden said. “Everyone’s entitled to a shot, guaranteed.”
Obama said it was hard to judge his own place in history, becoming the first Black president with his 2008 win. He said he can speak to the “extraordinary honor” it was to serve the American people.
“One thing I am proud of is the fact that I think we upheld the integrity and the ... honor of the office and how we conducted ourselves and how we ran our administration,” he said.
Bush remembers patriotism after Sept. 11 terror attacks
Bush detailed the country after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks and said he thinks it served as a “reminder that the human condition elsewhere matters” to U.S. national security.
He said the overwhelming volunteerism that happened after the attacks proved Americans had an “outpouring of patriotism.”
“We can recapture that. I hope it doesn’t require a crisis, but it’s still latent in the American soul,” Bush said.
Ahead of the country’s 250th anniversary, Bush said he thinks it’s an opportunity for Americans to “focus on the common good,” the wonders and the history of this country.
“The fact that you can worship freely without government telling you how to worship, the fact that you can speak in the public square without being jailed, the fact that we have a press that’s willing to hold the powerful to account. I mean, these are all things that should and generally do, unite us,” Bush said.
He said that he’s not worried about the long-term health of the United States because he’s studied enough history to know that there were periods of intense rivalry between ideas but “the beauty about democracy” is that it’s a country governed by citizens through voting.
The United States is an imperfect nation trying to be more perfect, but that requires Americans to “participate in the process, but also love a neighbor like you’d like to be loved yourself,” Bush said.
Obama expressed a similar sentiment about what Americans can do ahead of the nation’s 250th.
“We don’t have rulers. We don’t have kings or monarchs or aristocracies. We have citizens, and if we hold true to that idea that we the people have been gifted this chance of self-government, if we pay attention to our responsibilities and our duties, and if we extend respect and thoughtfulness to our fellow citizens, even if we disagree with them, if we understand that part of this democratic project is to sort through our differences in peaceful, legal ways,” he said, “Then I’m confident that we’re going to have another 250-year run that’s going to be just as good.”
President Donald Trump did not participate as part of the “formers” but will be featured by the History Channel on an America250 project that will be announced later this spring.