Janine Abbring talks to Obama for hours: “Nerve-singing”

“He is so engaging, experienced and full of humor that you quickly feel comfortable with him as an interviewer. After three quarters of the meeting, I also asked him: how do you do that? How do you make me immediately sympathetic and why, as a journalist, would I perhaps ask less critical questions? It made him laugh heartily,” Janine recalls.

Previously, Janine had an approved list of questions for Obama, but she also indicated that she wanted to have a conversation and would ask further questions if necessary. And so the conversation turned to Donald Trump, who announced he would run for president again. “I asked: are you worried about Trump? And that was a question that wasn’t pre-arranged. But he just answered and made a nice plea about the rise of populism and that he hoped that people would now see the effect it would have if someone like that came to power,” says the presenter, who also has to let it all sink in for a while. “That was something that was top of my bucket list, you know!” that sounds happy.

The event An evening with President Barack Obama lasted two hours and consisted of two parts. Previously, there was a kind of talk show with, among other things, columnist Merel van Vroonhoven and some musical performances, and then the conversation with Obama took place. Tickets for the event were on sale from 104.50 euros.