Intercept bureau chief: Obama memoir is a ‘rationalization for why more wasn’t possible’

The Intercept’s Washington, D.C., bureau chief Ryan Grim said Tuesday that former President Obama’s memoir is a “rationalization for why more wasn’t possible” during his presidency.

Grim told Hill.TV’s “Rising” that Obama’s book, “A Promised Land,” the first of two volumes released on Tuesday, was “so far … the book that I think everybody expected that he would write.”

During the interview, Grim specifically mentioned criminal justice reform, saying that the former president “might say” he acted too slowly on the issue. 

“It’s sort of a rationalization for why more wasn’t possible and for why those who are pushing him to be more aggressive were actually wrong,” Grim said. 

“The only things he would sort of acknowledge that he did wrong would be not doing the right thing sooner,” he later added. “You know that he was eventually right, but he just was too generous to his opposition and allowed the situation to go on for too long before he acted.”