Barack Obama is still struggling to understand how someone like Donald Trump appealed to so many people. In a wide-ranging interview with The Atlantic to promote his upcoming memoir, A Promised Land, the former president said he’d anticipated a populist uprising after seeing how Sarah Palin excited Republican voters in 2008—but thought it would be spearheaded by someone who was, well, better. “I will say that I’m not surprised that somebody like Trump could get traction in our political life,” he said. “But if we were going to have a right-wing populist in this country, I would have expected somebody a little more appealing.” Obama went on: “I guess I would not have expected someone who has complete disdain for ordinary people to be able to get attention and then the following from those very same people.”