WATCH: Dem lawmakers hope Obama stays active after presidency

Top Democrats on Capitol Hill are looking forward to President Obama remaining politically active after he leaves the White House this month.

{mosads}”I hope he’s going to be very active and I can’t imagine that he won’t be very active,” House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) told The Hill’s Molly K. Hooper.

“This is a very engaged, very smart popular president. He’s at 57-58 percent approval rating,” Hoyer added.

Obama shared his post-presidency plans with Democrats during a closed-door meeting on Capitol Hill on Wednesday.

Rep. Joseph Kennedy (D-Mass.) said he doesn’t expect Obama to be “chiming in on everything every single day.”

However, Obama will likely speak up “when it comes to issues of principle and the values that this administration has put forth whether that’s on immigration, or when it’s on climate or when it’s on healthcare,” Kennedy said.

Some Republicans such as Republican Policy Committee Chairman Luke Messer (Ind.) hope Obama follows the tradition of former presidents and “stays out of the lime light.”

“I hope that President Obama will continue with that tradition,” Messer told The Hill.

But House Democratic Caucus Chairman Rep. Joseph Crowley (N.Y.) pointed out that President-elect Donald Trump eschewed a tradition of remaining silent while the current president finishes his term in office.

“Typically, the president-elect normally keeps their mouth shut while the president is still the president — fair play i guess,” Crowley joked in an interview.

“I’m not sure that’s what the president meant … he’s going to be a private citizen, it doesn’t mean he can’t have an opinion and it doesn’t mean that he’s going to necessarily be shy about expressing that opinion.”