We asked Obama staffers: What do civilians not understand about the presidency?

In The Final Year, filmmaker Greg Barker followed President Barack Obama’s foreign policy team as it attempted to shape international policy in the last year of his presidency. After the film’s premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, we spoke with Barker and two members of that foreign policy team—Samantha Power, former ambassador to the United Nations, and Ben Rhodes, speechwriter and former assistant to the president—who worked closely with Obama during his presidency. In the video above, the pair speak about the scope of the president’s responsibilities, and the isolating nature of the job.