[Obama:] I just want to emphasize the degree to which we are in serious times and this is a really serious job. This is not entertainment. This is not a reality show.
[Brown:] It's not a reality show, but the president could have a starring role anyway. The White House says President Obama will, quote, "be out there quite a bit," campaigning for the Democratic nominee. So could he make the difference in a close election? Let's talk about it with CNN's Stephen Collinson. Stephen, how important is the president in this race?
[Stephen Collinson, Cnn Senior Politics Reporter:] I think the president's approval rate is very important for the Democratic nominee simply because whoever that is, Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders, is trying to pull off a historically very difficult feat, and that's winning the White House for a third consecutive term for their party so if the president is about 51 percent as he is now, that really helps the Democratic nominee. If he was down at 42 percent or 41 percent as he has been at sometimes during his presidency, it would make it much more difficult to make case that a Democrat should win the White House. And I think what's also important is that President Obama is very, very popular still among Democrats, and I think that gives him a role once this divisive primary between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders wraps up. And bring in the party together, and uniting the party, and to get out on the campaign trail and tell Democrats why, for example, they should vote for the nominee, if it's Hillary Clinton especially.
[Brown:] And Hillary Clinton, by the way, said this.
[Hillary Clinton , Presidential Candidate:] I told my husband he's got to come out of retirement and be in charge of this because, you know, he's got more ideas a minute than anybody I know. You got to put people back to work.
[Brown:] So for the Dems, you have two presidents who could campaign for their party. For the Republicans on the other hand, you have former presidents and nominees who want nothing to do with Trump. Will that matter?
[Collinson:] Well, I think Bill Clinton obviously we know what a good campaigner he is. He played a very big role in the Obama reelection campaign in 2012, and I think helped move a needle for President Obama. For Donald Trump, inasmuch as it shows the Republican Party is this united, that these big former, you know, presidents and nominees and big party figures are not coming out to campaign for him, I think that's a disadvantage but it may actually not affect Donald Trump as much as it would have a more conventional politician. The DNA of the Donald Trump campaign is that he's this outsider, this anti-elite, anti-establishment campaign, and so even if he had been embraced by the grandees of the party, I think it would be questionable just how much he would use them simply because they they don't seem to gel with the message that is at the root of his campaign, Pamela.
[Brown:] Yes. There's certainly a divide there in the Republican Party. For President Obama, if he goes on the campaign trail on behalf of the Democratic nominee, to what extent is that about protecting his own legacy and his number one achievement of course Obamacare is surely in jeopardy if Donald Trump were reelected or were elected, I should say?
[Collinson:] Sure. I mean, the president has an ulterior motive in this. There's so much of his legacy that could be undone by a Republican president whoever it is. You mentioned Obamacare, for example, which has you know, he's been fighting for the last six years to preserve Obamacare. And this is just the latest example of that. His legacy on climate change and global warming measures could also be a risk under a Republican president. It would take the stroke of a pen for a Republican president to strike away those executive orders on immigration that the president passed last year, so it really does matter for the president to have a Democrat succeed him and I think there's a historical irony here in many ways. You know, President Obama campaigned in 2008 against Hillary Clinton. He wasn't too complimentary about the legacy of Bill Clinton during that campaign, yet he's relying on his former rival to secure his own legacy when he no longer has the political power to do it himself. So it's a very interesting twist.
[Brown:] And could there be risks for the Democratic nominee if President Obama campaigns for them if, say, the economy tanked or there was another terrorists attack in the U.S.? Could that hurt the Democrats?
[Collinson:] Sure, anything that hurts the president's approval rating and perception that is he in charge and is doing a good job will be a very bad occurrence for the Democratic nominee. We just have to look back to 2008. The election between Barack Obama and John of McCain was fairly close until the worst of the economic crisis struck and sort of August and September of that year. It made it much more difficult for John McCain to make the case that he would be a safe pair of hands and the Republicans could do a good job and that he would be the best person to take over the economy and the Obama campaign really capitalized on that. So it's going to be a nervous few months definitely for the White House and whoever the Democratic nominee becomes.
[Brown:] And certainly an interesting few months ahead of us. Stephen Collinson, thank you so much. And you can read more of Stephen's article at CNNpolitics.com. And coming up, live in the CNN NEWSROOM on this Mother's Day, an exclusive interview with the billionaire Trump supporter who insists to skirmish between the presumptive Republican nominee and House Speaker Paul Ryan is all just part of art of the deal.
[Tom Barrack, Real Estate Investor:] It's like going to a dog park and you have two gigantic pit bulls and one fire hydrant. And the way they start the conversation is they both walk up to the fire hydrant and give it a little bit of their own.