10 talking points in David Letterman’s new Netflix show

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David Letterman has booked an all-star guest list for his new Netflix talk show series, "My Next Guest Needs No Introduction with David Letterman." Barack Obama will be his first guest in Jan. USA TODAY

One day after the current president of the United States made headlines by referring to Haiti, El Salvador and African countries as "----hole" places, the previous president shows up on David Letterman's new talk show detailing values he learned from his Midwestern mother: "Be honest, be kind, be useful, be responsible, work hard, treat everybody with respect."

This contrast between Donald Trump and Barack Obama isn't a set-up. Trump's remarks on immigration tumbled out during a Thursday meeting with members of Congress. Obama spoke with Letterman more than a month ago, and today's release date of Netflix series "My Next Guest Needs No Introduction with David Letterman" was announced last week.

But it's clear Indianapolis native Letterman would rather align himself with Obama. For comedic effect, Letterman more than once refers to Obama as still being a resident of the White House.

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Here are 10 things to watch for in the 60-minute debut episode of "My Next Guest," which returns next month with Letterman and actor George Clooney:

1. First impressions

Every talk show has opening credits, and "My Next Guest" features a red line flowing against a white silhouette of Letterman on a blue background. The line forms eyeglasses on the host, accompanied by a jazz instrumental written by Letterman's old TV sidekick, Paul Shaffer. The credits reveal "My Next Guest" as a co-production by Letterman's Worldwide Pants company and Radical Media — a firm affiliated with the pilot episode of TV's "Mad Men" and award-winning Metallica documentary "Some Kind of Monster." 

2. Opening remarks

Letterman walks onstage at a theater at the City College of New York (not all six episodes of "My Next Guest" were made at the same venue) wearing a tie and white shirt but no jacket. He jokes about not knowing what Netflix is, and he asks if audience members have guesses about who the show's guest might be. The two-chairs, no-desk format is similar to what Letterman used when he presented conversations at Ball State University with Oprah Winfrey in 2012 and Spike Jonze in 2015. And he's wearing a jacket by the time he sits down with Obama.

3. Comparing notes

As two people who exited high-profile jobs in the recent past, Letterman and Obama compare notes at the top of the show. Each asks a variation of, "What did you do after the gig ended?" but Letterman doesn't want to become an interview subject on his own show. He does, however, uncork a self-deprecating one-liner: "Even before retirement, there was a certain amount of brooding in the dark." Obama scores laughs when commenting on Letterman's facial hair. "He’s got this biblical beard," the former president says before raising his hand in a Moses manner. "Do you have a staff?"

4. First Lady

Even if U.S. laws allowed a third term for president, Obama says his wife, Michelle, wouldn't have put up with such a notion. On the topic of Michelle, who will visit Indianapolis Feb. 13 for a talk at Bankers Life Fieldhouse, Obama says, "Part of your ability to lead the country doesn’t have to do with legislation, it doesn’t have to do with regulations. It has to do with shaping attitudes, shaping culture, increasing awareness."

5. On racism

Racism provides a connecting thread for Letterman's interview with Obama, who says humans "made this thing up" hundreds of years ago. "Somebody's benefiting from the status quo," according to the former Illinois senator. On the bright side, Obama says people can form "habits of the heart" to create a new reality: “We’re social animals. If we see others who are volunteering, we think, ‘Oh, maybe we’ll volunteer.’ They see others voting, ‘Maybe I’ll vote.’ "

6. Field trip

In the middle of "My Next Guest," Letterman takes viewers to a recent conversation he had with iconic civil-rights activist and Georgia Rep. John Lewis. We see Letterman and Lewis walking across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Ala., where authorities violently attacked Lewis and other voting-rights marchers on March 7, 1965. Letterman asks Lewis about Trump tweets in which Lewis was characterized as being "all talk, talk, talk — no action or results." Lewis replies, "This man, he doesn’t know anything about me. All my life I’ve been active. Speaking up. You know, I was arrested and jailed 40 times in the ‘60s. Five times since I’ve been in Congress."

7. Social networks

Looking back at his 2008 successes of campaigning via Twitter and Facebook, Obama says he didn't realize social networks would someday be manipulated by "people in power, special interests and foreign governments." Letterman, who interviewed Twitter co-founder Biz Stone at Ball State in 2010, jokes, "I was under the impression that Twitter would be the mechanism by which truth was told around the world."

8. Dad talk

The first preview clip of "My Next Guest" showed Obama talking about his older daughter, Malia, inviting him onstage to dance during a 2015 performance by Prince at the White House. Obama also talks about helping Malia move into Harvard University ("The ritual of it was powerful," he says.) Letterman, meanwhile, says his son, 14-year-old Harry, shares don't-bother-me traits of Obama's younger daughter, Sasha. " 'Harry, congratulations, I heard you did well on the math test.' 'Don't talk to me about the math test.' "

9. Money matters

Obama says he inherited two wars and a collapsing economy as president, citing "a lot of pain, anguish and stress" during his first term. What does he think about our financial health today? "The challenge that we still have to address is how do we make an economy in this globalized, technological environment that’s working for everybody."

10. Whose news?

Obama generates some of the episode's biggest laughs and applause when talking about the "completely different information universes" inhabited by U.S. citizens. "If you watch Fox News, you are living on a different planet than you are if you listen to NPR," he says.

Call IndyStar reporter David Lindquist at (317) 444-6404. Follow him on Twitter: @317Lindquist.