Little Boy to Obama: "Why Do People Hate You?"

OBAMA: Tyren Scott, what do you have to say?

QUESTION: I have the say why do people hate you? And why -- they (sic) supposed to love you. And God is love.

PRESIDENT OBAMA: That's what I'm talking about.

(APPLAUSE)

Come on. Hey, that's what I'm talking about. Terence (ph), I appreciate that. What grade are you in?

QUESTION: Fourth.

OBAMA: You're in fourth grade.Well, now, first of all, I did get elected president, so not everybody hates me now. I don't want you to -- I got a whole lot of votes. I want to make sure everybody understands.
[# More #]
But you know, what is true is if you were watching TV lately, it seems like everybody's just getting mad all the time. And I -- you know, I think that you've got to take it with a grain of salt. Some of it is just what's called politics, where, you know, once one party wins, then the other party kind of gets -- feels like it needs to poke you a little bit to keep you on your toes. And so you shouldn't take it too seriously.

And then, sometimes, as I said before, people just -- I think they're worried about their own lives. A lot of people are losing their jobs right now. A lot of people are losing their health care or they've lost their homes to foreclosure, and they're feeling frustrated. And when you're president of the United States, you know, one of the... you've got to deal with all of that. That's exactly right. And, you know, you -- you get some of the credit when things go good. And when things are going tough, then, you know, you're going to get some of the blame, and that's part of the job.

But, you know, I'm a pretty tough guy. Are you a tough guy?

You look like you're pretty tough.

(LAUGHTER)

And -- and so you've just got to keep on going, even when folks are criticizing you, because -- as long as you know that you're doing it for other people, all right?

(APPLAUSE)

So thank you. You're a fine young man. I appreciate you.

All right. Give Terence (ph) a big round of applause.