Barack Obama Promotes Empathy with Oprah Winfrey: "My mother taught me empathy" — Transcript

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1. 0:00instead we have the opportunity to make
2. 0:01a habit of empathy to recognize
3. 0:04ourselves and each other your Creed for
4. 0:07politics is how does that make you feel
5. 0:11yeah yeah you said your mother used to
6. 0:12say to you she taught me empathy uh the
7. 0:15basic concept of standing in somebody
8. 0:16else's shoes and and looking through
9. 0:18their eyes and and she you know if I did
10. 0:20something messed up she'd just say h how
11. 0:24how would that make you feel if somebody
12. 0:25did that to you and that ends up being I
13. 0:29think at the center of my politics and I
14. 0:31think that should be the center of all
15. 0:32our politics if if we see a a child
16. 0:35who's languishing in in an inner city
17. 0:37school how would we feel if that was our
18. 0:39child uh if if we see a grandparent who
19. 0:43doesn't have their prescription drugs
20. 0:45you know how would that make you feel
21. 0:46how would that make you feel not to be
22. 0:48able to have not to be able to to drugs
23. 0:50to better your health exactly and and
24. 0:52and and I think that if that's the
25. 0:54central focus of our politics as opposed
26. 0:57to it being about power or you know how
27. 1:00can I get but it's hard you also say in
28. 1:02in the book on desity hope you also say
29. 1:04that it's hard to keep that for a lot of
30. 1:06politicians because you're flying in the
31. 1:08private jets you know I started
32. 1:10realizing that um when you get in the
33. 1:14habit of taking corporate Jets and
34. 1:16you're you know eating dinner with
35. 1:18lobbyists and and and that you start
36. 1:20getting detached from the people that
37. 1:22you represent one of the things that I'm
38. 1:24always worried about is uh starting to
39. 1:27represent Washington to my constituents
40. 1:29instead of represent pres my
41. 1:30constituents in Washington after I
42. 1:31instituted uh that that ban on on
43. 1:35corporate planes I remember taking
44. 1:37commercial and it was this classic you
45. 1:39know terrible ride trip out trip out to
46. 1:42oare was bad and you know you're you're
47. 1:45in the in the traffic jaam you get there
48. 1:47kids spilled orange juice on my shoes
49. 1:49yeah and all that stuff uh but as I was
50. 1:52finally getting on the plane plane had
51. 1:53been delayed I was grumpy I'm about to
52. 1:55get on and uh this young man comes up to
53. 1:58me and he says uh you're Obama and I
54. 2:00said yes and he said uh you know I just
55. 2:02want you to know that um I'm 32 33 uh
56. 2:06I've got a three-year-old son and uh and
57. 2:08I've got Parkinson's disease and um
58. 2:12although it's not bad yet they expect
59. 2:13that I'll probably never be able to
60. 2:15throw a baseball with my son and so I I
61. 2:18really want you to work on stem cell
62. 2:20research because it may not help me but
63. 2:23it might help somebody else to make sure
64. 2:25that they're not going through what I'm
65. 2:27going through and you know the uh it it
66. 2:31was just a small moment but it reminded
67. 2:33me of why I got into politics and why
68. 2:37you want to make sure that you are
69. 2:40always there present um that's why
70. 2:42happen on a private jet and that doesn't
71. 2:44happen on a private jet you know we we
72. 2:46reward people a lot for being rich or
73. 2:49being famous or being cute or being thin
74. 2:53uh and one of the values that I think we
75. 2:56need to instill in our country in our
76. 2:58children is a sense are you useful you
77. 3:01know the are you are you useful to other
78. 3:03people are are you uh uh making other
79. 3:06people's lives a little bit better it's
80. 3:07really good and and that's something
81. 3:09that you know when we have the
82. 3:11discussion about what values we want to
83. 3:13to lift up uh that I think is is a value
84. 3:17that we don't spend enough time talking
85. 3:19to our children about how can you be
86. 3:20useful to somebody else instead of just
87. 3:22sitting there playing PlayStation all
88. 3:24day what do I about what I
89. 3:27about see the world through other
90. 3:30people's eyes now empathy is a quality
91. 3:33of character that can change the world