Here's what Obama wrote to Trump on Inauguration Day

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CNN has obtained a copy of the letter former President Obama left for President Trump in the Oval Office on Inauguration Day. The brief note offers Trump several words of advice, and Trump reportedly enjoys sharing it with White House guests, one of whom was CNN's source.

"[W]e are just temporary occupants of this office," Obama cautions. "That makes us guardians of those democratic institutions and traditions — like rule of law, separation of powers, equal protection, and civil liberties — that our forebears fought and bled for," he continues. "Regardless of the push and pull of daily politics, it's up to us to leave those instruments of our democracy at least as strong as we found them."

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Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.