What Would You Ask Obama?

What Would You Ask Obama?

What Would You Ask Obama?

If ordinary citizens could attend a White House press conference, what would they want to know? Submit your questions here for a People’s Press Conference.

Ari Melber
Copy Link
Facebook
X (Twitter)
Bluesky
Pocket
Email

What do you think President Obama should be asked at his next press conference?

We are calling on Obama to start a new tradition to open up the White House: invite new and independent voices into the East Room by pledging to take a citizen-generated question at every prime-time press conference.

To put this idea into action–and give the busy White House something tangible to work with–The Nation is teaming up with a broad coalition of new and traditional media, including the Washington Times and Personal Democracy Forum, to begin gathering questions from the public. Then we’ll appeal to the president to call on a journalist to ask one of the most popular citizen questions at future press conferences, as explained in this Nation magazine article, “The People’s Press Conference.”

Submit your questions below, in text or video format; view other people’s questions and vote for the ones you think are most important.

Support The Nation’s June Fundraising Campaign

With the midterm elections now firmly upon us, the question is whether Democratic candidates will do more than merely occupy ballot lines as mild alternatives to the red-hot crisis that is Donald Trump.

As Trump spends over $1 billion a day on a globally destabilizing war on Iran and admits that he doesn’t “think about Americans’ financial situation,” millions across the country are struggling with the surging costs of essentials. Democrats must seize this moment and advance bold, small-“d” populist ideas—not settle for cynical caution that once again snatches defeat from the jaws of victory.

The Nation elevates progressive ideas, movements, and elected officials achieving real change across the country into the national conversation. At the same time, our journalists are exposing how crypto and AI-funded super PACs are spending hundreds of millions of dollars to knock out candidates they oppose, reporting on the devastating impact of the Supreme Court’s evisceration of the Voting Rights Act, and sounding the alarm on attempts by red states to quickly redraw electoral maps, disenfranchising Southern Black voters.

We can play this critical role because of support from readers like you. This June, we’re raising $20,000 to power The Nation’s independent journalism in the run-up to November’s immensely consequential elections.

It’s in our power to build a more just society, and your support at this critical moment brings us closer to that bold vision. I hope you’ll donate today.

Onward,

Katrina vanden Huevel
Editor and Publisher, The Nation

Ari Melber Ari Melber is The Nation’s Net movement correspondent, covering politics, law, public policy and new media, and a regular contributor to the magazine’s blog. He received a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor and a J.D. from Cornell Law School, where he was an editor of the Cornell Journal of Law and Public Policy. Contact Ari: on Facebook, on Twitter, and at [email protected]. Melber is also an attorney, a columnist for Politico and a contributing editor at techPresident, a nonpartisan website covering technology’s impact on democracy. During the 2008 general election, he traveled with the Obama Campaign on special assignment for The Washington Independent. He previously served as a Legislative Aide in the US Senate and as a national staff member of the 2004 John Kerry Presidential Campaign. As a commentator on public affairs, Melber frequently speaks on national television and radio, including including appearances on NBC, CNBC, CNN, CNN Headline News, C-SPAN, MSNBC, Bloomberg News, FOX News, and NPR, on programs such as “The Today Show,” “American Morning,” “Washington Journal,” “Power Lunch,” “The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell,” “The Joy Behar Show,” “The Dylan Ratigan Show,” and “The Daily Rundown,” among others. Melber has also been a featured speaker at Harvard, Oxford, Yale, Columbia, NYU, The Center for American Progress and many other institutions. He has contributed chapters or essays to the books “America Now,” (St. Martins, 2009), “At Issue: Affirmative Action,” (Cengage, 2009), and “MoveOn’s 50 Ways to Love Your Country,” (Inner Ocean Publishing, 2004).  His reporting  has been cited by a wide range of news organizations, academic journals and nonfiction books, including the The Washington Post, The New York Times, ABC News, NBC News, CNN, FOX News, National Review Online, The New England Journal of Medicine and Boston University Law Review.  He is a member of the American Constitution Society, he serves on the advisory board of the Roosevelt Institute and lives in Manhattan.  


Ad Policy
x

Latest from the nation

Yesterday 2:10 pm

San Francisco Sends Trump a Birthday Message

Pamela Alma Weymouth
Yesterday 1:13 pm

State Attorneys General Can Block the Paramount-Warner Merger

Zephyr Teachout
Yesterday 10:48 am

The Curious Case of the Nadav Lapid Boycott Campaign

Ben Schwartz
Yesterday 10:05 am

Trump’s Iran Deal Is a Humiliation for Him—and Good News for the World

Jeet Heer
Yesterday 8:30 am

Kushner and Trump’s Vile Isle Resort

Sue Coe

editor's picks

VIDEO: People in Denmark Are a Lot Happier Than People in the United States. Here’s Why.

The Nation

Historical Amnesia About Slavery Is a Tool of White Supremacy

Mychal Denzel Smith