“He’s so engaging, experienced, and humorous that you quickly get comfortable with him as an interviewer. Three-quarters of the way into the meeting, I also asked him: How do you do this? How do you make sure I’m really sympathetic right away and why, as a journalist, might I ask less critical questions? And that made him laugh so hard.” Abbring looks back.
Prior to this, Abbring had a list of approved questions for Obama, but she also indicated that she wanted to have a conversation and would ask more questions if necessary. And so the conversation turned to Donald Trump, who announced that he would run for president again. I asked him: Are you worried about Trump? This was a question that had not been arranged in advance. But he just answered and made a sweet plea about the rise of populism and that he hopes people will now see the impact of it if someone like that comes to power,” says the presenter, who also has to let all that go for a while. My wish list, you know!”, it sounds happy.
An Evening with President Barack Obama lasted two hours and consisted of two parts. Before that, there was some kind of talk show with, among others, columnist Meryl Van Vronhoven and some musical performances, and then the conversation took place with Obama. Tickets for the event sold from 104.50 euros.
