A video featuring former President Barack Obama when he was an Illinois state senator has resurfaced, and in the 2001 video for The History Makers, he was asked what he was like as a child and adolescent.
The video has regained national attention as Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh has been under fire since the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing last Thursday when he denied allegations that he’d sexually assaulted Christine Blasey Ford when they were at a house party in 1982.
Kavanaugh, during his testimony, admitted that he liked to drink beer while in high school, and sometimes that he drank "too many beers," but categorically denied all claims of sexual misconduct.
What are the details of this video?
In the Obama video, the former president’s remarks will sound familiar to many Americans.
"What was the young Barack like?" the interviewer asked Obama at one point in the clip.
Obama responded by telling her that he believed he was a "thug" for a large part of his childhood.
"I think I was a thug for a big part of my growing up. I think I was a very typical gregarious, mischievous child as a young boy," Obama admitted. "I think by the time I was an adolescent, and had moved back from Indonesia and was struggling with these issues of racial identity and a father not being in the house, I think that I reacted by engaging in a lot of behavior that’s not untypical of black males across the country."
He continued, "I played a lot of basketball, I didn’t take school that seriously, I got into fights, I drank and consumed substances that weren’t always legal, and you know, I think generally was acting out in ways that, when I look back on it, I understand."
Obama added that what he believed helped him pull through some more difficult years was his natural ability to do well in school without much effort.
"I think that what got me through those years was sort of a natural aptitude for schooling, which meant that I didn’t have to pay attention too much to be able to keep my grades up," he added. "[Or] at least graduate. Some of my behavior was self-destructive. I might drink a six-pack in an hour before going back to class, things like that."
You can watch the clip in its entirety below.
Obama on his adolescent years in a rare video of a 2001 interview:
-"I was a thug," a "mischievous child"
-"I got into fights."
-"I drank and did–and consumed substances that weren’t always legal."
-"I might have drank a six-pack in an hour before going back to class" pic.twitter.com/fesvtAPtFH
— Ryan Saavedra ?? (@RealSaavedra) October 3, 2018
Anything else?
Obama previously admitted to doing drugs in high school and college in his 1995 book, "Dreams From My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance."
One such excerpt about his drug experiences read:
I blew a few smoke rings, remembering those years [in high school]. Pot had helped, and booze; maybe a little blow when you could afford it. Not smack, though – Micky, my potential initiator, had been just a little too eager for me to go through with that. … He had pulled out the needle and the tubing, and I’d looked at him standing there, surrounded by big slabs of salami and roast beef, and right then an image popped into my head of an air bubble, shiny and round like a pearl, rolling quietly through a vein and stopping my heart.
(H/T: The Daily Wire)
via TheBlaze.com – Stories
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