Former President Obama sat down with Britain’s Prince Harry for a BBC Radio program broadcast Wednesday and discussed a wide range of topics, including what he felt during President Trump’s inauguration.
While Obama told Prince Harry he had mixed feelings, overall, he felt “serenity.”
"The sense that there was a completion, and that we had done the work in a way that preserved our integrity and left us whole and that we hadn't fundamentally changed, I think was a satisfying feeling," he said.
"That was mixed with all the work that was still undone and concerns about how the country moves forward. But overall there was a serenity there, more than I would have expected."
Obama also commented on the use of social media in office, although didn't single Trump out by name.
"All of us in leadership have to find ways in which we can recreate a common space on the internet," Obama said. "One of the dangers of the internet is that people can have entirely different realities. They can be cocooned in information that reinforces their current biases."
He continued: "The question has to do with how do we harness this technology in a way that allows a multiplicity of voices, allows a diversity of views, but doesn't lead to a Balkanization of society and allows ways of finding common ground."
The former president also stressed the importance of interacting with people "because the truth is that on the internet everything is simplified and when you meet people face to face it turns out they are complicated."
The full interview between @BarackObama and Prince Harry is available as a podcast here https://t.co/ar9Vkb0kcY
— Kensington Palace (@KensingtonRoyal) December 27, 2017