Supporters better vote to save him from impeachment. A top senate ally says the president , forgive me, his language, not mine, is pissed off but urges him to let it go. The oped piece should disturb you because you do have disloyalty in your ranks, but dont dwell on the oped piece. Dont dwell on the book. Youre going to get reelected based on your performance. So far, so good. He said, ive got to fight back. I said, fight back smartly. Back to that story in a moment. A live look here in illinois, where the 44th president of the United States is about to make his case against the 45th. Consider this remarkable fact as barack obama prepares to take a central role in the 2018 midterm debate. President obama has not spoken to the man who succeeded him since Inauguration Day 2017. The bad blood between the two is obvious, but today is noteworthy because mr. Obama has mostly stayed on the sidelines. Today, though, begins a flurry of campaign activity. This speech framing the stakes, then campaigning in california this weekend, ohio next week. Cnns jeff zeleny is at the white house. Jeff, it has been some time since we have seen president obama in such a political setting. What do we expect, and how direct do we look for here in the confrontations with the current president . Reporter john, it has been some time. Of course we saw president obama delivering one of the eulogies at senator john mccains funeral over the weekend, last weekend. There were political undertones to that, no doubt. But this is an entirely different moment. This has been in the works for a while. This is his 2018 midterm kickoff. No, hes not going to mention President Trump by name. Hes not going to do that, im told, by advisers. Thats not surprising at all. But there will be no mistaking the fact that he is, indeed, talking about this moment in our time. Hes talking about a backlash to a progress, in the words of one aide, and essentially that this administration, this white house has been trying to undo everything that he did during his eight years in office. So it is a bit unusual. This wasnt always the plan, to have the president get back in the fray. But they believe that the time is too important. His advisers, and in fact, he believes the time is too important to stay out of the fight. Now, he certainly knows something about president s losing midterm elections. He had a bruising 2010 midterm election, a bruising 2014 midterm election. He would like, and democrats would like, President Trump to have the same thing as well. But john, it will be very interesting to see how he calibrates this. Hes always been of the mind, dont boo, vote. Always been of the mind of getting activists and supporters out to midterm elections. Democrats have not done a very good job of that. They certainly are fired up in this respect, but he will have some tough medicine, im told, for democrats as well and independents to do the right thing, in his view. A very interesting speech. As you said, hell be campaigning more between now and november. Appreciate that. Live from the white house, jeff zeleny. You see the student there on stage introducing the former president. Were going to keep that picture there. Well take you to president obama when he starts to speak. With me in studio to share their reporting and insights, politicos eliana johnson, cnns abby philip. It began as no drama obama back in 2008, 2009. Now hes stepping back into the stage. Its hard to understate the drama of this moment, whether were talking about the chaos, the anger of the current president , the chaos inside the white house, and the stakes for the Democratic Party in an election that is just 60 days away. What should we be looking for most here . And ill start with this. If you look at the primary so far, it is the Obama Coalition plus, as some have said that is coming out in these elections. We know republican grip on the house is going to come down to suburban women, a constituency obama has good support with. Then the college audience, younger voters. Will they play in a midterm . They usually dont. Indications this time are the democrats can maybe get them out. Midterm elections are typically base elections. I dont think this will be all that different. He remains one of democrats best motivators for their base. I think the dynamics are a little bit interesting, though, as you point out because of course expresident s usually refrain from criticizing current president s. Its hard to see how he gets through a speech like this without making some kind of critique of the current administration, even if he doesnt necessarily, you know, name President Trump by name. I think that message will be implicit, if not explicit in his remarks. Your health care is at risk is one thing im told hes going to talk about. Hes going to talk about climate. The question is, does he use the words President Trump . Thats one thing. And to the point where we started, it is remarkable, unprecedented in my time in washington, that the current president of the United States has not had one conversation with the previous president , the man who handed him the keys to the oval office and the white house since leaving office. President s routinely check in, sometimes for advice and here we go. Lets just watch this. President obama returning to the stage, 60 days before the 2018 midterm elections. His first big political speech this year. His adopted home state of illinois. The 44th president of the United States. Lets listen. Hello, illinois [ cheers and applause ] i. L. L. i. L. L. okay, okay. Just checking to see if youre awake. Please have a seat, everybody. It is good to be home. [ cheers and applause ] its good to see corn, beans. I was trying to explain to somebody as we were flying in, thats corn. Thats beans. They were very impressed at my agricultural knowledge. Please give it up for amari, once again, for that outstanding introduction. [ cheers and applause ] i have a bunch of good friends here today, including somebody who i served with who is one of the finest senators in the country, and were lucky to have him. Your senator, dick durbin, is here. [ cheers and applause ] i also noticed, by the way, former governor edgar here, who i havent seen in a long time, and somehow he has not aged and i have. It was great to see him. I want to thank everybody at the u of i system for making it possible for me to be here today. I am deeply honored at the paul douglas award that is being given to me. He is somebody who set the path for so much Outstanding Public Service here in illinois. Now, i want to start by addressing the elephant in the room. I know people are still wondering why i didnt speak at the 2017 commencement. The student body president sent a very thoughtful invitation. Students made a spiffy video, and when i declined, i hear there was speculation that i was boycotting campus until antonios pizza reopened. So i want to be clear. I did not take sides in that latenight food debate. The truth is, after eight years in the white house, i needed to spend some time one on one with michelle if i wanted to stay married. And she says hello, by the way. I also wanted to spend some quality time with my daughters, who were suddenly young women on their way out the door. And i should add, by the way, now that i have a daughter in college, i can tell all the students here, your parents suffer. They cry privately. It is brutal. So please call. Send a text. [ applause ] we need to hear from you. Just a little something. Truth was, i was also intent on following a wise american tradition of expresident s gracefully exiting the political stage and making room for new voices and new ideas. We have our first president , george washington, to thank for setting that example. After he led the colonies to victory as general washington, there were no constraints on him, really. He was practically a god to those who had followed him into battle. There was no constitution. There were no democratic norms that guided what he should or could do. And he could have made himself all powerful, could have made himself potentially president for life. Instead, he resigned as commander in chief and moved back to his country of state. Six years later, he was elected president. But after two terms, he resigned again and rode off into the sunset. The Point Washington made, the point that is essential to american democracy is that in a government of and by and for the people, there should be no permanent ruling class. There are only citizens, who through their elected and temporary representatives, determine our course and determine our character. Im here today because this is one of those pivotal moments when every one of us as citizens of the United States need to determine just who it is that we are. Just what it is that we stand for. And as a fellow citizen, not as an expresident , but as a fellow citizen, im here to deliver a simple message, and that is that you need to vote because our democracy depends on it. [ applause ] now, some of you may think im exaggerating when i say this novembers elections are more important than any i can remember in my lifetime. I know politicians say that all the time. I have been guilty of saying it a few times, particularly when i was on the ballot. But just a glance at recent headlines should tell you that this moment really is different. The stakes really are higher. The consequences of any of us sitting on the sidelines are more dire. And its not as if we havent had big elections before or big choices to make in our history. Fact is, democracy has never been easy, and our Founding Fathers argued about everything. We waged a civil war. We overcame depression. Weve lurched from eras of great progressive change to periods of retrenchment. Still, most americans alive today, certainly the students who are here, have operated under some common assumptions about who we are and what we stand for. Out of the turmoil of the Industrial Revolution and the great depression, america da adapted a new economy, a 20th century economy, guiding our free market with regulations to protect health and safety and fair competition, empowering workers with union movements, investing in science and infrastructure and educational institutions like u of i, strengthening our system of primary and secondary education, and stitching together a social safety net. All of this led to unrivalled prosperity and the rise of a broad and deep middle class and the sense that if you worked hard, you could climb the ladder of success. Not everyone was included in this prosperity. There was a lot more work to do. And so in response to the stain of slavery and segregation and the reality of racial discrimination, the Civil Rights Movement not only opened new doors for africanamericans but also opened up the flood gates of opportunity for women and americans with disabilities and lgbt americans, others to make their own claims to full and equal citizenship. And although discrimination remained a pernicious force in our society and continues to this day, and although there are controversies about how to best ensure genuine equality of opportunity, theres been at least rough agreement among the overwhelming majority of americans that our country is strongest when everybodys treated fairly, when people are judged on the merits and the content of their character and not the color of their skin or the way in which they worship god or their last names. And that consensus then extended beyond our borders. And from the wreckage of world war ii, we built a postwar web, architecture, system of alliances and institutions to underwrite freedom and oppose soviet totalitarianism and to help poorer countries develop. American leadership across the globe wasnt perfect. We made mistakes. At times we lost sight of our ideals. We had fierce arguments about vietnam and we had fierce arguments about iraq. But thanks to our leadership, a bipartisan leadership, and the efforts of diplomats and peace corps volunteers, and most of all thanks to the constant sacrifices of our men and women in uniform, we not only reduced the prospects of war between the worlds great powers, we not only won the cold war, we helped spread a commitment to certain values and principles like the rule of law and human rights and democracy and the notion of the inherent dignity and worth of every individual. And even those countries that didnt abide by those principles were still subject to shame and still had to at least give lip service to the idea, and that provided a lever to continually improve the prospects for people around the world. Thats the story of america. A story of progress, fitful progress, incomplete progress, but progress. And that progress wasnt achieved by just a handful of famous leaders making speeches. It was won because of countless acts of quiet heroism and dedication by citizens, by ordinary people, many of them not much older than you. It was won because rather than be bystanders to history, ordinary people fought and marched and mobilized and built, and yes, voted to make history. Of course, theres always been another darker aspect to americas story. Progress doesnt just move in a straight line. Theres a reason why progress hasnt been easy and why throughout our history every two steps forward seems to sometimes produce one step back. Each time we painstakingly pull ourselves closer to our founding ideals, that all of us are created equal, endowed by our creator with certain inalienable rights, the ideals that say every child should have opportunity and every man and woman in this country whos willing to work hard should be able to find a job and support a family and pursue their small peace of the american dream, ideals that say we have a collective responsibility to care for the sick and the infirm. And we have a responsibility to conserve the amazing bounty, the Natural Resources of this country and of this planet for future generations. Each time weve gotten closer to those ideals, somebody somewhere has pushed back. The status quo pushes back. Sometimes the backlash comes from people who are genuinely, if wrongly, fearful of change. More often its manufactured by the powerful and the privileged who want to keep us divided and keep us angry and keep us cynical because it helps them maintain the status quo and keep their power and keep their privilege. And you happen to be coming of age during one of thouse moment. It did not start with donald trump. He is a symptom, not the cause. [ applause ] hes just capitalizing on resentments that politicians have been fanning for years, a fear and anger thats rooted in our past but its also born out of the enormous upheavals that have taken place in your brief lifetimes. By the way, it is brief. When i heard amari was 11 when i got elected and now hes like started a company, that was yesterday. But think about it. Youve come of age in a smaller, more connected world where demographic shifts and the wind of change have scrambled not only traditional economic arrangements but our social arrangements and our religious commitments and our civic institutions. Most of you dont remember a time before 9 11, when you didnt have to take off your shoes at an airport. Most of you dont remember a time when america wasnt at war or when money and images and information could travel instantly around the globe. Or when the climate wasnt changing faster than our efforts to address it. This change has happened fast, faster than any time in human history. And it created a new economy that has unleashed incredible prosperity, but its also upended peoples lives in profound ways. For those with unique skills or access to technology and capital, a Global Market has meant unprecedented wealth. For those not so lucky, for the factory worker, for the office worker, or even middle managers, those same forces may have wiped out your job or at least put you in no position to ask for a raise, and as wages slowed and inequality accelerated, those at the top of the Economic Pyramid have been able to influence government to skew things even more in their direction. Cutting taxes on the wealthiest americans, unwinding regulations and weakening worker protections, shrinking the safety net. So you have come of age during a time of growing inequality, a fracturing of economic opportunity. And that growing economic divide compounded other divisions in our country. Regional, racial, religious, cultural. And made it harder to build consensus on issues. It made politicians less willing to compromise, which increased gridlock, which made people even more cynical about politics. And then the reckless behavior of financial elites triggered a massive financial crisis. Ten years ago this week a crisis that resulted in the worst recession in any of our lifetimes and caused years of hardship for the american people. For many of your parents, for many of your families. Most of you werent old enough to fully focus on what was going on at the time, but when i came into office in 2009, we were losing 800,000 jobs a month. 800,000. Millions of people were losing their homes. Many were worried we were entering into a second great depression. So we worked hard to end that crisis but also to break some of these longer term trends. The actions we took during that crisis returned the economy to healthy growth and initiated the longest streak of job creation on record. And we covered another 20 million americans with Health Insurance and cut our deficits by more than half, partly by making sure that people like me who have been given such amazing opportunities by this country pay our fair share of taxes to help folks coming up behind me. [ applause ] and by the time i left office, Household Income was near its alltime high, and the uninsured rate hit an alltime low, poverty rates were falling. I mention this just so when you hear how great the economy is doing right now, lets just remember when this recovery started. [ cheers and applause ] im glad its continued, but when you hear about this economic miracle thats been going on, when the job numbers come out, monthly job numbers and suddenly republicans are saying its a miracle, i have to kind of remind them, actually, those job numbers are the same as they were in 2015 and 2016 and anyway. [ applause ] i digress. So we made progress, but and this is the truth my administration couldnt reverse 40year trends in only eight years. Especially once republicans took over the house of representatives in 2010 and decided to block everything we did. Even things they used to support. So we pulled the econom