President Barack Obama, in one of his final interviews as president, claimed recently that he was the first modern president without a "major" scandal during his tenure in the White House.
Obama made the comments in an interview with Steve Kroft on CBS "60 Minutes" that is set to air Sunday.
When pressed by Kroft whether or not Obama's administration changed Washington, Obama alleged that he was able to change the things that were in his control by being the first modern presidential administration to be free of any major scandals.
"I changed those things that were in my direct control," Obama said.
"And I mean, look, I’m proud of the fact with two weeks to go, we are probably the first administration in modern history that hasn't had a major scandal in the White House," he added. "In that sense, we changed some things."
However, many, many Americans would disagree with Obama's assumption. In fact, a large portion of Americans would likely argue that Obama has overseen a large number of scandals during his time in the White House.
Some of those scandals include: Operation Fast and Furious, Benghazi, the Veterans Affairs scandal, the IRS targeting conservative groups, the Department of Justice unlawfully seizing information of journalists, the NSA conducting mass surveillance on Americans, being a part of Hillary Clinton’s private email scandal, paying Iran a ransom for the release of several Americans, the Secret Service scandal involving prostitutes in Colombia, the EPA dumping waste in the Colorado River, just to name a few.
Indeed, Obama's claim that his administration has been scandal-free isn't a new talking point. In the closing months of the administration, at least one top administration official has publicly made the same claim.
"The president prides himself on the fact that his administration hasn’t had a scandal and he hasn’t done something to embarrass himself," Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett said earlier this month on CNN.
During his interview with "60 Minutes," Obama went on to explain that he would have liked to accomplish more during his eight years as president, but said that it was Republicans who constantly obstructed his agenda.
"There were big stretches, while governing, where even though we were doing the right thing, we weren’t able to mobilize public opinion firmly enough behind us to weaken the resolve of the Republicans to stop opposing us or to cooperate with us," Obama claimed.
However, many object this claim, given the fact that during Obama's time as president, Congress was controlled solely by Republicans for only two of those years, 2015 and 2016. In fact, for the first two years of his presidency, Democrats had sole control of Congress and Obama was able to freely administer his agenda how he wanted.
Watch Obama's interview excerpt with "60 Minutes" below:
