Jeff Shesol

I think there is tension inherently because you have a president who is still president who has certain points that he wants to press and certain directions he wants to lead and he wants his successor to go, he probably has a good deal of confidence in his political judgment and thinks he knows best.

The single most important thing that could happen from here on out for the Obama legacy is the election of Hillary Clinton.

There are very few partnerships of such a public nature. I think that the analogy is real and it's relevant.

We really consciously wanted to undercut the narrative that was developing in the media that he could not stand the idea that he had to give up the microphone, that all the action was with Hillary Clinton and Al Gore and he must of course be miserable, it was the biggest reaction I had ever seen in the hall. It was a success on the terms that we had set out from the beginning. One was to be funny, the other was to change the perception.

This isn't just light entertainment. It's a high-wire act for the president, and more so in the last decade or so than it used to be. We live in a different era.