Former US president Barack Obama in a CBS’ ’60 Minutes’ interview told host Scott Pelley that the country is “very divided.” This was in response to a question on the large number of votes both presidential candidates — incumbent Republican President Donald Trump and President-elect Joe Biden, have received.

Although Biden has received the highest number of votes in the US history, Trump got 8 million more votes than what he got four years back.

“It tells us that we’re very divided,” the former president told CBS’ ’60 minutes’. “It’s not just the politicians now. The voters are divided. It has now become a contest where issues, facts, policies per se don’t matter as much as identity and wanting to beat the other guy,” he added.

According to Obama, the “current media environment adds to that greatly.”

“This democracy doesn’t work if we don’t have an informed citizenry,” he said.

In the interview, the 44th president of the US spoke on a number of issues, including the recently concluded presidential election, Trump’s refusal to concede and his upcoming book, ‘A Promised Land.’

Also read: He made me a better president: Barack Obama on Joe Biden

“Our democracy seems to be teetering on the brink of a crisis,” Obama writes in his memoir.

When asked by the interviewer what he meant by that, he explained that it means, “the sense that not only do we not have to tell the truth, but the truth doesn’t even matter.”

According to him, the “truth decay” has “been accelerated by outgoing President Trump.”

He was asked about what would USA’s adversaries — China and Russia be thinking about the fact that transition isn’t moving forward.

“I think our adversaries have seen us weakened, not just as a consequence of this election, but over the last several years,” he replied. 

“We have these cleavages in the body politic that they’re convinced they can exploit,” he said.

“When it comes to our foreign policy, that it is the United States of America, not the divided states of America,” he added.

Although Trump has lost the election to Obama’s former vice president Joe Biden, he has refused to concede and has alleged election fraud.

Also read: Barack Obama, Bill Clinton congratulate Joe Biden, Kamala Harris on election victory

When asked for his advice for his successor, Obama said, “a president is a public servant.”

“They are temporary occupants of the office, by design. And when your time is up then it is your job to put the country first and think beyond your own ego, and your own interests, and your own disappointments.”

His advice to Trump was that if wanted to be remembered as someone who put the country first, it was time for him to concede.