Is the White House really a "dump"?

By Baraka Kaseko, Marah Eakin | October 4, 2017 | 8:15pm

Aux Features Expert Witness

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In The Final Year, filmmaker Greg Barker followed former White House staffers on President Obama’s foreign policy team as they attempted to shape international policy in the last year of his presidency. While the film follows the team across multiple continents to Greenland, Japan, and Nigeria, a good portion of the film takes place within the walls of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

After the film’s premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, we spoke with Barker and two members of Obama’s foreign policy team—Samantha Power, former ambassador to the United Nations, and Ben Rhodes, speechwriter and former assistant to the president. In the clip above, Rhodes responds to the current president’s criticism of the White House and tells us his experience working in the West Wing.