President Barack Obama very likely spent his meeting with President-elect Donald Trump Thursday sharing "a lot of details to preserve the programs you want to have preserved," former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer told Newsmax TV.
"It wouldn't surprise me if President Obama talked for 75 percent of the meeting," Fleischer, who served President George W. Bush, told "The Steve Malzberg Show" in an interview. "He used it as his chance to really dig deep into policies, because he wants to preserve those policies and not see them repealed.
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These programs most likely included Obamacare and the Iran nuclear deal, he said.
"Let's say the president said to Donald Trump: 'Let's talk about the Iran deal and I want to understand why you want to repeal it.
"'Here's what you need to know. Here's the consequence of this. Here's the consequence of that.
"'Here's what happened to the uranium that was already shipped to Russia. Here's what Russia will do to put it back,'" Fleischer posed.
"It's these important key substantive facts — as President Obama sees them — that he has the unique opportunity to convey to candidate Trump, and now President-elect Trump, about things that likely never came up on the campaign trail because of complicated wonky details that presidents wrestle with but candidates really get to gloss over."
Might Trump have done much talking during the session?
"I think the role of the president-elect in a meeting like that is to frankly be a very polite listener," Fleischer told Malzberg. "This is the president's swan song."
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