for them to lead. will democracy win, it starts now. hello everyone, welcome to the cnn special report, i am christiane amanpour live in the ancient city of athens in greece, the seeds of democracy were first sown. one-on-one with former president barack obama, here sounding the alarm on the fate of democracy and working to strengthen it through the foundation, joining me at the snf cultural center in athens, devoted to civil society and discourse, he spoke candidly about the presidential race, including both of these successors, donald trump and the current president joe biden. the last overseas speech was right here back in november 16,
those incendiary we were in the green room and senator obama turned to me and said, i know everybody s nervous, but i m going to go out there and give this speech. and maybe people won t accept it. and then i won t be president of the united states. but at least i ll have said what i want to say. he said, and that s worth something. i have already condemned in unequivocal terms the statements of reverend wright that have caused such controversy. as imperfect as he may be, he has been like family to me. i can no more disown him than i can disown my white grandmother, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed her by on the street. these people are part of me and they are part of america, this country that i love. i thought it was taking a moment that is normally responded to by a politician with denials and avoidance, we re not going to comment any further. and, instead, he made somethin
caused such controversy. as imperfect as he may be, he has been like family to me. i can no more disown him than i can disown my white grandmother, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed her by on the street. these people are part of me and they are part of america, this country that i love. i thought it was taking a moment that is normally responded to by a politician with denials and avoidance, we re not going to comment any further. and, instead, he made something useful out of it. the profound mistake of reverend wright s sermons is not that he spoke about racism in our society, it s that he spoke as if our society was static. what we know is that america can change. hillary clinton had a chance to catch obama from behind. but when obama gave his great speech on race, that was it,