Obama Talks Politics, Aliens With Colbert

Stephen Colbert's soon-to-end Late Show aired an interview with another big-name guest on Tuesday—and Barack Obama used it to needle the current occupant of the Oval Office without ever saying his name. In an interview taped last month at his new presidential center in Chicago, Obama joked that Colbert might not be such an outlandish presidential candidate anymore. "I'm looking for a new gig soon, and a lot of people tell me I should run for president," Colbert said, per Rolling Stone, adding that he thinks it's a "stupid idea." "The bar has changed," Obama said, adding that the host could "perform significantly better than some folks that we've seen," before quickly denying it was an endorsement.

• Obama went to outline limits he believes presidents should respect, warning that American democracy can "survive a lot," but it "can't overcome the politicization of the criminal justice system," the New York Times reports. "The idea is that the attorney general is the people's lawyer," Obama said. "It's not the president's consigliere." "You can't have a situation in which whoever is in charge of the government starts using that to go after their political enemies or reward their friends," Obama said. He also argued presidents shouldn't turn the military into a political prop or juggle "side hustles" while in office.
• On Democratic politics, Obama downplayed talk of a party in disarray and said he was less worried about ideological rifts than about how Democrats talk to voters. He urged them to "talk plain English" instead of sounding like they're in "a college seminar," and praised New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani as an "extraordinary talent" who avoids policy "gobbledygook."

• Colbert also pressed Obama on one of his favorite late-night topics: aliens. Obama, who recently said on a podcast that he believes extraterrestrial life is "real," stressed that he doesn't know that from classified briefings—and doubts the government could hide such a thing anyway. Washington, he said, is "terrible at keeping secrets," joking that if the US really had alien spacecraft, "some guy guarding the installation would have taken a selfie with one of the aliens and sent it to his girlfriend." He said he hopes aliens exist, quipping, "First contact, I think I would be a good emissary for the planet." Colbert told him, "We will keep that in mind."
• The interview included a tour of the Obama Presidential Center, which opens to the public on June 19.
• CBS News reports that Obama also answered some Chicago questions, saying he prefers tavern-style pizza over deep-dish pizza and the Sox over the Cubs. Asked if it's ever OK to put ketchup on a hot dog, he replied, "Never."