Emmy Winner Reveals Why Barack Obama Was ‘Concerned’ About Him

Barack Obama is very worried about comedian Alex Edelman, the stand-up comic and star of Peacock’s The Paper revealed on Obsessed: The Podcast.

In his 2024 HBO stand-up special Just for Us, Edelman, 37, detailed his experience attending a meeting of neo-Nazis as a Jewish person (he was undercover at the meeting). Several months later, at the 2024 Democratic National Convention, a friend introduced Edelman to the former president.

“I was introduced to him in a dark room, Edelman told host Kevin Fallon. “He said, ‘Young man, if I was your mother, I’d be really concerned about how you make your living.’ I said, ‘Comedy?’ And he went, ‘Neo-Nazis,’ because the show’s about me going to this meeting and neo-Nazis. And I went, ‘You saw my special?’”

In response, Obama quoted the show back to Edelman.

“He was like, ‘Can you believe it?’ Which is a line from the special,” Edelman said. “I don’t know if he’s just an avid TV watcher, or if he enjoys it, but I had such a lovely conversation with him about empathy before he was whisked away to speak to the people that he should be speaking to at the DNC. But it was a really gorgeous moment and probably the most gratifying one.”

Edelman won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for a Variety Special for Just for Us, which also ran on Broadway in summer 2023 and received a Special Tony Award. He currently stars as Adam Cooper in the sitcom The Paper, a mockumentary set in the same world as The Office. The Paper follows the staff of a small Midwestern newspaper as they struggle to keep the newsroom afloat; Edelman also writes on the show. Season 2 began streaming on Sept. 9 on Peacock.

Edelman turned 18 in 2008, making Obama the first president he voted for. He also volunteered on Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign in Boston, his hometown. The comedian attributes many themes in Just for Us to coming of age in the Obama era; the show explores questions of empathy amid the internet’s amplification of hate—questions Edelman said millennials care about.

“It’s sort of the pragmatic idealism of someone who turned 18 in 2008,” Edelman said. “Like, a millennial right in the square center of millennials is someone who wonders about whether or not empathy could indeed solve everything, and what the limits of empathy are and whether or not we’ve jettisoned that in a more urgent, fevered time. Those questions are all very typical of an Obama-era millennial, and so getting to chat about that with Barack Obama was very, very, very shocking.”

Iconic audience members were part of what made the show so special for Edelman, he said. Several of his cultural and comedic influences attended and offered thoughts that shaped Edelman’s approach to his content and style.

“All my heroes came, and I got advice from a lot of them,” he said. “The show started to carry the comet’s tale of people who influence you artistically. They come, see something, and they like it. You get to say to them, ‘Hey, you made that thing a little bit.’”

“I became a comedian because I watched [Jerry] Seinfeld or Steve Martin,” he continued. “These guys being like, ‘I like the show,’ you’re like, ‘Wow. It’s because, well, it’s partially your show. You’re an influence.’”

When Obsessed’s Kevin Fallon asked whether receiving praise from Obama made Edelman think he’s “the person who might change the world,” Edelman didn’t have to think about his response.

“That’s crazy,” he said. “No, I don’t feel that way. I really don’t feel that way.”