WASHINGTON (TIP): In his parting message before Donald Trump took over, President Barack Obama assured Americans that “we’re going to be OK” but vowed to protect US’ “core values” and speak up against issues like discrimination, muzzling of press freedom and rounding up of young immigrants.

“At my core, I think we’re going to be OK,” Obama said as he concluded his final news conference at the White House. “We just have to fight for it, work for it, and not take it for granted,” he said.

Obama said he has given his best advice to his successor Trump to whom he passed on the baton January 20. “I have offered my best advice, counsel about certain issues both foreign and domestic,” Obama said, describing his conversations with the President-elect.

“And my working assumption is, is that having won an election opposed to a number of my initiatives and certain aspects of my vision for where the country needs to go, it is appropriate for him to go forward with his vision and his values. I don’t expect that there’s going to be enormous overlap,” he said.

He said now his priorities would be to do some writing, spend some time with his two daughters and Michelle. “I want to do some writing, I want to be quiet a little bit and not hear myself talk so darn much. I want to spend precious time with my girls,” he said.

However, he said any effort to enforce systematic discrimination, erode voting rights, muzzle the press or round up young immigrants, would cause him to speak out.

During the campaign, Trump vowed to ban Muslims from entering the United States and deport millions of illegal immigrants.

After Trump’s victory in the November 8 presidential elections, Obama has met his successor only once, but the two leaders have spoken over phone quite frequently with the last one being reported to be on Monday.

Obama said it may be that on certain issues, once Trump comes into office and he looks at the complexities of how to, in fact, provide healthcare for everybody-something he says he wants to do or wants to make sure that he is encouraging job creation and wage growth in this country, “that may lead him to some of the same conclusions that he arrived at once I got here”.

Asked for a commenton his relations with his successor, Obama said: “I won’t go into details of my conversations with President-elect Trump. They are cordial. At times, they’ve been lengthy and they’ve been substantive. I can’t tell you how convincing I’ve been. I think you’d had to ask him whether I’ve been convincing or not,” he said when asked about the details of his conversations.”