Video:60 minutes interview with obama
In a wide-ranging interview broadcast Sunday evening, Barack and Michelle Obama reveled in their ability to achieve some level of normalcy again after the election, as they prepare for the enormous challenges ahead.
The president-elect said in a "60 Minutes" interview that he remains calm, but confessed feeling at least a little overwhelmed as he prepares for the White House.
"There are times, during the course of a given a day, where you think, 'Where do I start?'" he said during a session recorded Friday afternoon in Chicago at the Ritz-Carlton hotel.
Obama also said his conversations with past presidents suggest there is a "certain loneliness" to being president.
"'You'll get advice, and you'll get counsel," he said. "Ultimately, you're the person who's going to be making decisions. And -- and I think that -- even now, you know, I-- you can already feel that fact."
The broadcast aired before Obama and Sen. John McCain are to have their first post-election meeting, a session scheduled for midday Monday in the Loop.
The two former rivals are expected to be joined by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Rep. Rahm Emanuel, the Chicago Democrat who will be Obama's chief of staff.
The president-elect refused to be pinned down on when he will make his first Cabinet appointments, responding "soon" when asked whether he would make any this week.
He also declined to say whether he planned to appoint more than one Republican. "You're not getting more out of me," he told Steve Kroft.
On Sunday, Obama also formally resigned his U.S. Senate seat, as his transition team announced several new staff appointments.
Pete Rouse, a Capitol Hill veteran who ran Obama's Senate office and helped craft the foundation for his White House bid, was named a senior adviser, while Mona Sutphen and Jim Messina were selected as deputy chiefs of staff.
The Associated Press reported that Obama is also expected to name Greg Craig, who was President Bill Clinton's impeachment lawyer, as White House counsel. In Obama's debate practice sessions, Craig played the role of McCain.
Asked by Kroft whether he planned to put political enemies on his Cabinet, as Abraham Lincoln did, the president-elect responded by saying the first president from Illinois was a "very wise man."
With the economy struggling, Obama said the nation has little choice but to boost government spending and conservative and liberal economists agree.
