Former Aide: Obama 'Really Doesn't Like People'

A former aide to President Barack Obama went on Twitter on Tuesday to apologize for saying that the president “really doesn’t like people.”

"I was trying to say how President Obama, who I admire greatly, is a private person, but I deeply regret how I said it. I apologize," the former aide, Neera Tanden, wrote on Twitter, Politico reports.

Tanden, now president of the Center for American Progress, told New York magazine in an article published on Sunday that Obama did not call former President Bill Clinton the first two years of his term because: “People say the reason Obama wouldn’t call Clinton is because he doesn’t like him. The truth is, Obama doesn’t call anyone, and he’s not close to almost anyone.

“It’s stunning that he’s in politics, because he really doesn’t like people,” Tanden said in her interview with the magazine. “My analogy is that it’s like becoming Bill Gates without liking computers.”

But the former aide did not tweet on another comment she made in the New York magazine interview, Politico reports. She said Obama renewed his ties with Clinton, who has been actively campaigning for the president, out of political expediency.

“Obama engineered this reconciliation, and I think the whole time he was, like, ‘Why do I have to do this?’ ” Tanden said in the interview. “He did it because he wanted to win, and this was the way to do it.”