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.

Hold the powerful to account by supporting The Nation

The chaos and cruelty of the Trump administration reaches new lows each week.

Trump’s catastrophic “Liberation Day” has wreaked havoc on the world economy and set up yet another constitutional crisis at home. Plainclothes officers continue to abduct university students off the streets. So-called “enemy aliens” are flown abroad to a mega prison against the orders of the courts. And Signalgate promises to be the first of many incompetence scandals that expose the brutal violence at the core of the American empire.

At a time when elite universities, powerful law firms, and influential media outlets are capitulating to Trump’s intimidation, The Nation is more determined than ever before to hold the powerful to account.

In just the last month, we’ve published reporting on how Trump outsources his mass deportation agenda to other countries, exposed the administration’s appeal to obscure laws to carry out its repressive agenda, and amplified the voices of brave student activists targeted by universities.

We also continue to tell the stories of those who fight back against Trump and Musk, whether on the streets in growing protest movements, in town halls across the country, or in critical state elections—like Wisconsin’s recent state Supreme Court race—that provide a model for resisting Trumpism and prove that Musk can’t buy our democracy.

This is the journalism that matters in 2025. But we can’t do this without you. As a reader-supported publication, we rely on the support of generous donors. Please, help make our essential independent journalism possible with a donation today.

In solidarity,

The Editors

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

Today 10:38 am
Europe

Trump’s Deranged Land Grabs Would Make Sense to Big Brother

Alfred McCoy
Today 8:30 am

Eggflation

Martha Lewis
Today 7:48 am

Trump's War on the Palestine Movement Is Something Entirely New

Saree Makdisi
Today 5:30 am

A Disgraced Hunter Biden Informant Had Ties to Trump Social Media Bid

Jacqueline Sweet
Today 5:30 am

The Creator of “Adolescence” Backs a Social Media Ban for Kids—but It’s the Wrong Move

Katrina vanden Heuvel

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