Former President Barack Obama was baffled after Donald Trump won the 2016 election, according to a soon-to-be-released book by former adviser Ben Rhodes.
As Fox News reports, Obama told aides, “Sometimes I wonder whether maybe we pushed too far…Maybe people just want to fall back into their tribe.”
“The World As It Is” also reveals that Obama’s aides sought to reassure him that he would have won a third term if he had been allowed to run again instead of campaigning for Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.
The outgoing president worried about what Trump would do to the Obama historical record, wondering if it wouldn’t be just like “The Godfather” film:
“I feel like Michael Corleone,” Rhodes quotes Obama as saying during the presidential transition period. “I almost got out.”
“There are more stars in the sky than grains of sand on the earth,” Obama said, according to Rhodes.
Ultimately, the book suggests that Obama was able to cope with the result by admitting, “Maybe this is what people want. I’ve got the economy set up well for him. No facts. No consequences. They can just have a cartoon.”
Rhodes was Obama’s deputy national security adviser after beginning his White House years as a speechwriter.
Rhodes denies that either he or Obama knew of any FBI investigation to the Trump campaign until it was reported in the news.