On a special episode of "Today" from the White House, Matt Lauer spoke to President Barack Obama about many things, including his opinion on how the 2016 election is shaping up.
"I'm pretty confident that the overwhelming majority of Americans are looking for the kind of politics that does feed our hopes and not our fears," the president said, "that does work together and doesn't try to divide, that isn't looking for simplistic solutions and scapegoating but looks for us buckling down and figuring out, 'How do we make things work for the next generation.'"
Lauer asked the president about the claims of Donald Trump, in particular that the United States of America is on the brink of collapsing as a country, be it through terrorist attack or illegal immigration. "There are no existential threats facing us," Obama replied, in a comment that will surely appear multiple times in the upcoming Republican debate.
But he did say he could imagine a situation in which Donald Trump would deliver a State of the Union address -- "a 'Saturday Night Live' skit.'" He did acknowledge, however, that "anything is possible, and I think we shouldn't be complacent."
As for his own time in office, Obama reflected that "I could not be prouder of what we've accomplished. Sometimes, we look at the past through rose-colored glasses. It's been pretty divided in the past. There've been times where, you know, people beat each other with canes."
Watch the entire interview below via NBC.
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