With little political experience, Donald Trump is probably in need of as much advice as he can get before he takes office in 2017.
And who better for that job than the outgoing President, Barack Obama, who has been advising him since his election.
In an interview in the White House with Trevor Noah, Obama revealed some harsh words he gave to Donald during his counselling.
Climate change was a huge issue brought up by Noah, who pointed out the President-Elect seemed to have a completely opposing view on the topic to Obama.
Speaking on The Daily Show, President Obama said:
I’ve had several conversations with the president-elect in which I’ve said to him: Look, if you can find different approaches to deal with the problems, I don’t pretend that I was the repository of all wisdom, but what you can’t do is pretend they’re not problems.
Trump famously spoke of how climate change is a hoax by China, so Obama was quick to tell him not to be in denial of reality.
Obama warned of the dangers of sweeping environmental issues under the carpet, and used one of Trump’s golf course floodings as an example of how climate change was directly affecting him.
‘Reality doesn’t go away’ was Obama’s key point. He said:
So if the oceans are going up and some streets of Miami – a mile or two from where the president-elect has a golf course – are seeing flooding in the middle of sunny days, and it’s salt water coming up through the ground, that’s still going to have to be dealt with one way or another.
They may change policy on climate change — but climate change is still climate change. Reality doesn’t go away.
As a final word of warning to the new President, Obama let him know that one of the first discoveries a new leader makes is that ‘A: Reality doesn’t go away and B: Federal government is an aircraft carrier, not a speedboat – turning it is hard’.
Obama covered a number of other topics on the show, including his personal experience of being an African American.
Reassuringly, he said he will be watching how the country is being run and will not simply disappear.
