Former Obama administration adviser Valerie Jarrett expressed frustration Tuesday morning at the more than 40 percent of Americans she said did not vote in last year's presidential election.
Jarrett appeared on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" and offered her thoughts on President Donald Trump.
"They were looking for change. I really cannot spend a lot of time looking backwards. It's too, too painful for me. I just try to look forward," Jarrett said when asked what drove Americans to vote for Trump over Democrat Hillary Clinton.
"Look, I'm troubled by the 43 percent of the American people who didn't show up in the polls in the last election. That's a problem. That's a lack of understanding about what our responsibility, all our responsibilities as citizens should be. The bare minimum is voting, and then get engaged in your community. So that's troubling to me."
According to U.S. Census Bureau data, 61.4 percent of Americans of voting age cast a ballot in the 2016 election.
Jarrett served as a senior adviser to former President Barack Obama throughout his eight years in office. She told the "Morning Joe" panel Obama is worried about what Trump is doing to the United States.
"Well, of course, he's concerned. A lot of the very important steps that we took to level the playing field, to ensure that we had a culture of inclusion where every child gets a fair shot, many of those provisions and steps we took are being rolled back," Jarrett said. "But he is still so optimistic."
Jarrett added that Obama is also troubled by Trump and the Republican Party's attempts to repeal and replace Obamacare, which could leave millions of Americans without health insurance.
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