How the world fell out of love with Obama: Politico’s Nahal Toosi recorded a series of interviews for a BBC documentary on the evolving view of US President Barack Obama globally. Toosi captured this changing perception through interviews in Cuba, Egypt, and Ukraine as some of the countries affected most by Obama’s policies. Egyptians interviewed recalled the sanguine view following Obama’s 2009 speech in Cairo University. Former Foreign Minister Nabil Fahmy is also interviewed for the documentary and talked about how Obama’s discomfort with Egypt’s circumstances led to confusion among his aides as a battle of idealists and realists in Obama’s circle played out.

Fahmy says “young staffers” would pass a “hilarious” number of small pieces of paper to senior representatives, including John Kerry and Susan Rice during meetings he attended; “trying to get them to say something, which they didn’t want to say … at the senior level, they realised ‘Egypt is going to be Egypt’ while younger people, and I was young, it’s fine, thought that no, they could decide what a 7,000 year-old has to do and when on their time.” When Toosi asked Fahmy if he thought Obama managed to grasp the “nitty-gritty” side of diplomacy, Fahmy replied: “No.” (Runtime 49:27)