Obama’s advice to Trump? ‘It’s time for you’ to concede to Biden.

“My advice to President Trump is, if you want at this late stage in the game to be remembered as somebody who put country first, it’s time for you to do the same thing,” Obama said.

His remarks amounted to the former president’s most forceful statement yet condemning Trump’s failure to respect a peaceful transition of power to President-elect Joe Biden. During a wide-ranging interview, Obama also criticized Republicans “who clearly know better” for allowing Trump’s false claims of election fraud to go unchecked.

Since the race was called on Nov. 7 for Biden, Trump has not yet acknowledged losing to Obama’s former vice president. Instead, Trump has tweeted unfounded complaints about a stolen contest, blocked the federal government from cooperating with Biden’s transition team, and waged an unlikely legal campaign that he claims, without evidence, will reveal widespread electoral fraud.

As judges and election officials have repeatedly struck down Trump’s lawsuits and rejected unfounded claims of fraud, his administration has made it easier for federal prosecutors to investigate those claims. Meanwhile, a number of Trump’s top political appointees in the federal government are, in their free time, searching for evidence in the battleground states that carried Biden to victory.

“I WON THE ELECTION!” Trump again bellowed to his Twitter followers before midnight on Sunday, in yet another post that drew a warning message from the social media app: “Official sources called this election differently.”

After Pelley asked what Obama would tell his successor during the last weeks of his administration, he echoed a message that he left behind for Trump in the Oval Office four years ago: Presidents should leave “instruments of our democracy at least as strong as we found them.”

During the nearly half-hour conversation, which coincided with the release of his new memoir, the former president also expressed his concerns about the divisions splitting apart the country — divisions that go beyond Trump’s presidency.

“I don’t see him as the cause for our divisions and the problems with our government,” Obama said of Trump. “I think he’s an accelerant, but they preceded him, and sadly are going to likely outlast him.”

During his own presidency, Obama said, a changing media landscape and the demonization of his leadership led to an increasingly partisan base of voters who created fractures and gridlock in Congress.

But that polarization nonetheless increased under Trump, Obama said. He specifically pointed to the Republican lawmakers who have supported Trump’s efforts to question election results — an act that Obama considers more troubling than a challenge from a leader known for his hatred of losing.

“It is one more step in delegitimizing not just the incoming Biden administration but democracy generally,” Obama said. “And that’s a dangerous path.”

Nearly four years ago, in contrast, the transition of power largely occurred without a hitch. As Pelley noted, Obama opened his new book, “A Promised Land,” by writing about leaving the White House behind to “someone diametrically opposed to everything we stood for.”

“That may be the one thing that Donald Trump and I agree on,” Obama responded. “He doesn’t agree with me on anything.”