Former President Barack Obama will have a new project on his plate during the final stretch of the midterm elections: talking about books. 
The 65-year-old announced this week that he’s launching a six-episode Audible <a href="https://www.audible.com/about/newsroom/president-barack-obama-to-host-a-great-book-on-audible?srsltid=AfmBOopP848zJuv-3RMZ-_qAIvpbux4zovLmEB18P8BdLCViebY7wH6P">podcast</a> on September 24, less than six weeks before voters head to the polls in November. The announcement comes as Democrats battle for control of Congress, and Obama remains an influential campaign surrogate and fundraiser for the party.
“At a time when fewer people are able to sit down with a book, it’s important to remember the joy and power that can come from reading. And some books don’t just tell a story — they change the way we see the world,” Obama <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/Db3QizRuKvM/">said</a>. “A while back, I revisited a few of the books that made an impact on me as a young man, influencing how I think about family, faith, race, politics and America.”
Titled “A Great Book With Barack Obama,” the podcast will explore six books that helped shape the former president&#8217;s leftist worldview: The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin, Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison, All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy, Gilead by Marilynne Robinson, All the King’s Men by Robert Penn Warren, and Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy by John le Carré. 
Each episode will feature Obama discussing one of the books with a guest to “explore why they resonate, how they can shape our understanding of ourselves and each other, and why literature matters now more than ever.”
“I hope listeners will be inspired to discover or rediscover books that change the way they see themselves and the world,” Obama said in an <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/Db3QizRuKvM/">Instagram post.</a> 
The timing puts the podcast&#8217;s launch squarely in the home stretch of the midterm campaign, as Obama continues to play a pivotal role in Democratic politics, picking up the phone to help heal wounds left by divisive primaries and hosting fundraisers ahead of November.
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/el-sayed-shrugs-off-hasan-pikers-9-11-comments?author=Jacob+Wheeler&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=10&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=El-Sayed+Shrugs+Off+Hasan+Piker%E2%80%99s+9%2F11+Comments">The Daily Wire </a>previously reported that Obama personally called Michigan Senate Democratic candidate Abdul El-Sayed following his narrow victory over establishment-backed Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI). Obama did not endorse either candidate in the race.
Obama is also expected to <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/obama-to-headline-dem-gerrymandering-fundraiser-in-posh-marthas-vineyard?author=Drew+Berkemeyer&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=undefined&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=Obama+To+Headline+Dem+Gerrymandering+Fundraiser+In+Posh+Martha%E2%80%99s+Vineyard">headline a Democratic fundraiser</a> later this month on Martha’s Vineyard to benefit the National Democratic Redistricting Committee (NDRC), as Democrats continue to grapple with financial challenges at the national level.
The event, hosted by former Attorney General Eric Holder, will feature “dinner and a discussion” with the former president, according to an invitation first obtained by <a href="https://punchbowl.news/article/campaigns/obama-ndrc/">Punchbowl News</a>.

Former President Obama Joins NYC Mayor Mamdani On A Visit To Child Care Center

During Midterm Home Stretch, Barack Obama Will Launch New Podcast… About Books

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Former President <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/msnbc-host-wants-barack-obama-to-lead-a-hotline-to-save-america-from-republicans" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Barack Obama</a> claimed that since he left the White House in January 2017, the divided media was the thing that truly kept him up at night.
Obama spoke with “CBS Mornings” co-host Nate Burleson about the divided nature of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/chris-cuomo-lets-media-have-it-for-ignoring-border-crisis-the-joke-is-on-us" target="_blank" rel="noopener">media</a> — and how that translates to a divided America.
WATCH:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
CBS&#39;s Nate Burleson: &quot;Post-presidency, what&#8230;keeps you up at night?&quot;
Barack Obama: &quot;The thing&#8230;I&#39;m most worried about is&#8230;a divided conversation in part b/c we have a divided media&#8230;When I was growing up, you had three TV stations&#8230;We almost occupy different realities.&quot; <a href="https://t.co/KrNWHjSgap">pic.twitter.com/KrNWHjSgap</a>
&mdash; Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) <a href="https://twitter.com/CurtisHouck/status/1658451498248945664?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 16, 2023</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
&#8220;The thing that I&#8217;m most worried about is the degree to which we now have a divided conversation, in part because we have a divided media, a splintered media,” Obama said.
The former president went on to reference the time before cable news, the internet, and the 24-hour news cycle — when most Americans got their news from three main networks and everyone could at least agree on what the facts were in any given situation.
“Today what I&#8217;m most concerned about is the fact that, because of the splintering of the media we almost occupy different realities, right?” Obama said. “If something happens that, you know, in the past everybody could say, &#8216;All right, we may disagree on how to solve it, but at least we all agree that, yeah, that&#8217;s an issue.’”
“Now people will say, &#8216;Well, that didn&#8217;t happen,&#8217; or, &#8216;I don&#8217;t believe that,&#8217; or, &#8216;I don&#8217;t care about the science,&#8217; or, &#8216;I&#8217;m not concerned about these experts, you know, cause they&#8217;re just all liberals&#8217; or, you know, &#8216;That&#8217;s just conservative propaganda,'&#8221; he added.
Obama then said that one of his goals with regard to the Obama Foundation was to explore ways to bring the conversation back to where people could at least agree on a common set of facts as a jumping-off point.
“How do we return to that common conversation? How can we have a common set of facts?” he asked.
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During the same interview, the former president also addressed the topics of gun violence and mass shootings — and he argued that the gun control argument had become more political than necessary.
“It has become sort of a proxy for arguments about our culture wars, you know? Urban versus rural. Race is always an element in these issues. Issues of &#8230; class, and &#8230; education and so forth,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Instead of thinking about it in a very pragmatic way, we end up really arguing about identity, and emotion, and all kinds of stuff that does not have to do with keeping our children safe.”

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‘We Almost Live In Different Realities’: Barack Obama Says ‘Divided Media’ Keeps Him Up At Night

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With three weeks to go until the 2022 midterm elections, things are so bad for Democrats that they&#8217;re already getting their stories together on who and what to blame for what many pollsters are predicting will be a bloodbath for the party.
Former President Barack Obama, who hit the campaign trail in a desperate attempt to stem the losses, was brutal in his assessment of what&#8217;s dragging Democrats down, saying they&#8217;re a &#8220;buzzkill.&#8221;
&#8220;When we’re talking about putting together … durable majorities, we have to be able to speak to everybody about their common interests,” Obama said in an <a href="https://nypost.com/2022/10/15/barack-obama-blasts-cancel-culture-calls-dems-buzzkill/">interview</a> with &#8220;Pod Save America.&#8221;
&#8220;Where we get into trouble sometimes is when we try to suggest that some groups are more — because they historically have been victimized more, that somehow they have a status that’s different than other people,&#8221; he said. &#8220;And that we’re going around scolding folks if they don’t use exactly the right phrase, or that identity politics becomes the principal lens through which we view our various political challenges.&#8221;
James Carville, the chief strategist for Bill Clinton, was famed for framing the 1992 presidential race with just four words: &#8220;It&#8217;s the economy, stupid.&#8221; He, too, says Democrats are far too focused on abortion while Americans care most about inflation, gas and food prices, rampant crime, and the porous southern border.
“A lot of these consultants think if all we do is run abortion spots that will win for us. I don’t think so,” he <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/the-ragin-cajun-warns-dems-abortion-aint-a-winning-issue">said</a>. “It’s a good issue. But if you just sit there and they’re pummeling you on crime and pummeling you on the cost of living, you’ve got to be more aggressive than just yelling &#8216;abortion&#8217; every other word.”
Carville is spot on. Democrats thought they had been gifted a winning issue when the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the 1973 landmark decision that deemed abortion a constitutionally protected right across America.
And Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) says Democrats are spending too much time moaning about abortion rights and far too little on one of his key issues, economic inequality.
&#8220;I don’t believe it can be the only issue,&#8221; Sanders told “CNN Tonight with Jake Tapper” in a recent interview.
“At a time when we have an economy in which the wealthiest people, the billionaire class, are getting much, much richer while working people are struggling to put food on the table, it goes without saying that we have to focus on the economy,” he said.
Mike Lux, a Democratic strategist and Clinton White House adviser, told <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/3695023-democrats-ready-for-midterm-blame-game/">The Hill</a> he agrees with Obama.
“I think the language police stuff gets a little silly, but I would also say that in the focus groups that I have done and the polling that I have been working on … voters are not mostly focused on that stuff. That’s what Twitter is focused on,” he said. “My sense of what voters are focused on is economic issues, abortion, stuff that really matters to them and their lives.”
Well, wrong on abortion, but right on the other issues.
Americans are keyed in inflation, which has forced more than half of working Americans to consider getting a second job to make ends meet.
&#8220;About 38% of workers have looked for a second job, while an additional 14% have plans to do so, according to a survey of more than 1,000 full-time US employees by Qualtrics International Inc., which makes software used by over 16,000 organizations,&#8221; <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-10-19/inflation-forces-over-50-of-americans-to-consider-a-side-hustle?leadSource=uverify%20wall">Bloomberg News</a> reported. &#8220;At the same time, 18% of working adults said they had moved to an area with a lower cost of living to cut expenses, and another 13% plan to do so.&#8221;
Why? &#8220;About 70% say their pay isn’t keeping up with rising expenses. A recent Brookings Institution study estimated that the current spike in prices means it will now cost more than $300,000 to raise a child to age 17, up $26,000 since inflation took hold,&#8221; Bloomberg reported.
The views expressed in this piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.
Joseph Curl has covered politics for 35 years, including 12 years as White House correspondent for a national newspaper. He was also the a.m. editor of the Drudge Report for four years. Send tips to josephcurl@dailywire.com and follow him on Twitter @josephcurl.

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During Midterm Home Stretch, Barack Obama Will Launch New Podcast… About Books

‘We Almost Live In Different Realities’: Barack Obama Says ‘Divided Media’ Keeps Him Up At Night

CYA: Democrats Already Making Excuses For The Coming Midterm Election Thumping