Episode 1686 - Barack Obama

Summary

WTF with Marc Maron Podcast

Episode 1686 - Barack Obama

Date: October 13, 2025
Duration: ~65 minutes
Host: Marc Maron
Guest: Barack Obama

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Episode Overview

In the final episode of WTF, Marc Maron closes out 16 years of intimate, probing conversations by sitting down with President Barack Obama in Washington D.C. The conversation serves as both a reflective coda on Maron’s iconic podcast and a wide-ranging exploration of society, democracy, personal transition, and the fragile hope that threads through modern life. Obama lends both pragmatic and philosophical insights on moving forward amid uncertainty, the role of vulnerability and authenticity in public life, and the urgent and ongoing test of American democratic values.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Starting the Final Conversation: Stage Fright, Rituals, and Transitions

• Opening Reflections (02:15)
  • Obama jokes about the terror of standup comedy:

    "To me, I can't imagine anything tougher or more terrifying than doing standup comedy. So once you do that ... everything else is ... not as frightening." — Barack Obama [02:15]

  • Obama and Maron discuss performance anxiety, connecting it to both comedy and high-stakes politics; the adrenaline never really goes away.
• A Bittersweet Goodbye to Brendan (05:30)
  • Maron ceremoniously releases long-time producer Brendan McDonald from his 'burden' of listening to Marc, with Obama as witness.

    "Brendan is free to talk to me socially, but that is entirely up to him ... I am forever grateful to Brendan for keeping me at my best." — Marc Maron [05:31]

Facing the End: Navigating Change and Identity After a Defining Era

• Processing Endings (07:17)
  • Obama shares advice on not rushing into the next phase, taking satisfaction in one’s body of work, and allowing organic discovery of new purpose.
  • Emphasis on the role of reflection and the importance of "taking a beat" post-milestone.

    "My theory was ... don't rush into what the next thing is. Take a beat and take some satisfaction ... saying, huh, you know what? Didn't get everything done that I wanted ... but there's a body of work there that I'm proud of." — Barack Obama [08:54]

• The Gravity of Audience and Connection (08:23)
  • Maron reflects on the responsibility to his audience and the comfort of commiseration.
  • Obama notes the power of trust and shared vulnerability:

    "They feel as if what you're going through and what they're going through occupies a similar space ... so they don't feel like they're traveling this journey that can be frightening alone sometimes." — Obama [08:23]

Democracy, Media, and the Changing Fabric of Connection

• From Analog to Algorithm (16:34)
  • Obama traces media evolution from his first campaign’s reliance on early social media (Meetup, MySpace) to current digital fragmentation and tribalization.
  • Anecdotes about MySpace and Meetup highlight how early digital tools promoted in-person connection and complexity.

    "By virtue of meeting a person, you kind of realize people are a little more complicated. Maybe they don't agree with me on everything ... and that's a good thing." — Obama [19:37]

• Social Media's Impact (21:57)
  • Both discuss algorithms' narrowing effect:

    "It does capture your mind and send you down a very narrow track ... it has narrowed your world significantly." — Obama [22:01]

  • Maron warns: social feeds can "break your brain" and erode core values with addictive, charged content.
• The Fragmenting Commons (24:44)
  • Obama worries about podcasts and conversations, once a force for nuanced democracy, devolving into bite-sized, context-less content.
  • Praises longform audio:

    "There is still, I think, a power in just people listening to conversations if they listen to the whole thing." — Obama [24:45]

  • Maron points out his show’s resistance to video and clips, encouraging "whole conversation" listening.

Authenticity, Vulnerability, and Leadership

• Grounded Leadership (27:01)
  • Obama lauds Texas Rep. James Tirico and his own foundation’s focus:

    "Know what you really believe. That's your starting point ... If you understand your convictions ... then it's a lot easier now to be open and actually listen to other people." — Obama [27:30]

  • Both connect authenticity to vulnerability and the courage to stand by one's beliefs.

    "There’s a vulnerability to having that integrity and having those principles ... you have to leave yourself open to what's gonna come back at you and still stand strong." — Maron [29:14]

• Dangers of Certitude and Self-Righteousness (31:55)
  • Obama criticizes the "holier than thou" streak in progressive circles, drawing parallels to right-wing rigidities.

    "There was almost asserting a holier than thou superiority ... a certain fundamentalism ... that I think was dangerous." — Obama [30:00]

Competing American Narratives

• History’s Two Stories (33:15)
  • Obama recounts the "war of ideas" at the heart of American identity, referencing his Selma speech as foundational:

    "What John Lewis represented was the narrative that says we the people means just what it says ... On the other side was the fact of slavery and conquest and hierarchy and domination." — Obama [34:00]

  • He acknowledges the recurring tension between inclusive democracy and exclusionary tribalism.
• The Media’s Role in Division (39:21)
  • Obama laments the loss of a common narrative, noting that the monoculture era (however flawed) helped sustain unity; today, social media silos amplify division and erode forbearance.

    "You don't hear that sense of what we have in common except during the Super Bowl and a couple other ... maybe during the Olympics." — Obama [39:00]

The Challenge of “Better, Not Perfect” Politics

• Incrementalism vs. Cynicism (40:47)
  • Obama argues that incremental progress is essential in democracy and life, warning against disengaged idealism.

    "Part of what a liberal democracy requires is an acceptance of partial victory ... If you’re telling me that the Affordable Care Act is going to insure 50 million people ... better is good. We’re not going to get to perfect." — Obama [40:47]

  • Relays a story about advising Malia’s friends on climate change despair:

    "I said, you know what, that half a centigrade difference, that could make a difference in a billion people's lives ... that's worth working for." — Obama [44:52]

The Escalation of Authoritarian Threats

• The Fragility of Norms (47:14)
  • Obama details how established guardrails in American democracy have been systematically weakened—from the military’s politicization to abuse of the Justice Department.

    "We have blown through just in the last six months, a whole range of not simply assumptions, but rules and laws and practices that were put in place to ensure that nobody's above the law." — Obama [51:07]

  • Invokes the need for collective courage, referencing past eras (e.g., McCarthyism) and calls for everyday vigilance over heroics.

    "What's required ... is a few folks standing up and giving courage to other folks ... we need people who have whatever platforms they have to be able to say, no, that's not who we are." — Obama [53:00]

• Testing Conviction (57:27)
  • Obama on being tested for beliefs, not just fashion:

    "If convictions don’t cost anything, then they're really just kind of fashion. They're not really conviction. ... We've never really been tested. Well, here's the test." — Obama [57:27]

• Consequences and Complacency (58:41)
  • Obama and Maron discuss how comfort can mute people’s sense of urgency and responsibility, with Obama warning that “clarity is coming about right now.”

Values, the Market, and Rebuilding Trust

• Corporations and Culture (59:32)
  • Obama analyses the dangers of unchecked economic inequality and the need to reintroduce old-fashioned virtues—kindness, character, honesty—into the American story.

    "So much of our culture now ... is geared around buying stuff and having stuff and posting it on Instagram ... Winning is now defined solely by material goods ... and to some degree, fame." [62:21]

  • Counsels more open, less cynical dialogue, especially around contested identities, such as trans rights, suggesting a decency-first approach.

Closing Reflections

• Hope and Closing Gratitude (64:27)
  • Obama reassures Maron:

    "I think we’re going to be okay ... Most people are really decent and I think that's why, when they hear somebody else who is, it gives them courage ... You should be proud of having done that." [64:27]

  • Both share mutual appreciation.

    "Well, thank you Mr. President and thank you. I'm glad I made the trip ... I hope to talk to you again." — Marc Maron [65:14] "We’ll meet halfway next time." — Barack Obama [65:22]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Opening Laugh:

  "Can I say before we start ... I can't imagine anything tougher or more terrifying than doing standup comedy." — Obama [02:15]

• The Essence of Collaboration:

  "He's like your super ego." — Obama on Brendan McDonald [06:40]

• On Authenticity and Change:

  "Know what you really believe ... If you understand your convictions, you got a moral compass, you got a code ... Then it's a lot easier now to be open and actually listen to other people ..." — Obama [27:30]

• On Hope Amidst Imperfection:

  "Better is good." — Obama [42:12] "A half percent difference ... could be entire coastal villages. ... that could make a difference in a billion people’s lives." — Obama [44:52]

• On Being Tested:

  "If convictions don’t cost anything, then they're really just kind of fashion ... Well, here’s the test." — Obama [57:27]

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Key Timestamps

• 00:09 – Maron: Opening remarks, reflecting on the meaning of the final episode
• 02:15 – Obama: On the terror of standup, stage fright, and anxiety
• 05:30 – Maron and Obama: Ceremony releasing Brendan McDonald
• 07:17 – Transition and loss; advice post-presidency
• 16:34 – Obama: Social media, organizing, and early digital tools
• 22:01 – Effects of algorithms on collective consciousness
• 27:01 – Discussion on leadership, authenticity, and young politicians
• 33:15 – Competing stories of America, Selma, and democracy's fragility
• 40:47 – Incremental change versus ideological purity in politics
• 47:14 – The erosion of norms, democratic backsliding, authoritarian tactics
• 57:27 – The cost of convictions and the present test of American values
• 62:21 – On fame, materialism, and the need for a revival of shared values
• 64:27 – Obama: Closing words of hope and encouragement

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Summary Statement

Marc Maron’s final WTF episode is both a personal farewell and a wide-lens meditation on our turbulent era, featuring Barack Obama’s signature mixture of realism, wit, and deeply-held conviction. The conversation ranges from the anxieties of public life to the erosion and fragile preservation of democratic norms, the limitations and unexpected strengths of new media, the dangers of moral absolutism, and the bulldog necessity of hope and decency. For listeners—old and new—it’s a powerful, intimate lesson in endings, resilience, and the ongoing work of living meaningfully in uncertain times.

Transcript

[Barack Obama]

Lock the gate.

[Marc Maron]

All right, let's do this. How are you, folks? This is it. This is the last episode of wtf. I didn't really know what we were going to do for this episode initially. I thought, well, maybe I. I could just talk to you guys and reflect. But we did that on Thursday. So then it came down to, well, who are we going to have on the last episode? And, well, you know, I do a lot of talking about how I feel about the world, both interior and exterior, micro macro, what's going on in me, how am I reacting to what's going on in the world? And it became clear that the guest we needed to have was singular in that he could address the importance of this being our final episode, but also address how we move through the world we're living in. As frightening as it is with what's happening and how do we do it, with some grace and perhaps some hope and some focus and really call what's going on what it is. And that guest is President Barack Obama. So I went to Washington, D.C. he came to my house the last time, so I figured I'd go to him. And we sat down for about an hour plus, and we talked about a lot of things. But I think there's a lot of grounding, sort of instructive advice in this conversation about how we frame where we're at and how we think about it and what's necessary. So this is me talking to Barack Obama. President Barack Obama in Washington, D.C.

[Barack Obama]

Can I say before we start, you know, whenever you want to start. To me, I can't imagine anything tougher or more terrifying than doing standup comedy. So once you do that.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Barack Obama]

I mean, everything else is.

[Marc Maron]

Is easy.

[Barack Obama]

I won't say easy. I'm saying not as frightening. Yeah. To me, standing alone on a stage and hoping a bunch of people laugh at your stuff.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, it's. Yeah. You get used to it. But not unlike, I'm sure, your gig, you know, sometimes it's not going to go exactly right.

[Barack Obama]

It's not always going to. You're not always going to hit it out of the park. Right. But I guess what I'm saying is, at a certain point for you, there's got to be just. You had a lot of reps. Yeah, reps are helpful, man.

[Marc Maron]

Reps in talking to people and reps in comedy. But it's weird with both for me because I seem to get just as anxious.

[Barack Obama]

It never goes away.

[Marc Maron]

Not for me, because I don't know if it's part of my preparation but with standup, it's a little less. Where I know that a part of me lives up there, that I exist on that stage. And so I don't freak myself out as much. But with conversations, I don't generally know what's gonna happen. And the anxiety's different, but, yeah, I still keep it fresh by being terrified.

[Barack Obama]

Well, look, there's Bill Russell. Yep. Bill Russell, greatest, greatest champion of North American sports. Kept throwing up even after, right before games.

[Marc Maron]

It's true, right?

[Barack Obama]

Yeah, yeah. I mean, you got to have a little bit of a few butterflies otherwise, did.

[Marc Maron]

You don't get it.

[Barack Obama]

You know, not just having a conversation. Right. You know, if there's a big speech that I gotta give. Yeah. Then there's still a little bit of. A little bit of fear, a little bit of adrenaline.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, yeah.

[Barack Obama]

A little bit of like. All right, let me make sure that. Yeah, you know, I got.

[Marc Maron]

You're ready to go. You're focused.

[Barack Obama]

I'm focused, lit up. I'm pumped up. Are we just gonna dive in here?

[Marc Maron]

I think we're already doing it.

[Barack Obama]

We're already doing it.

[Marc Maron]

I do want to ask you.

[Barack Obama]

Let's go.

[Marc Maron]

I got a weird question I want to ask you. And I decided to start with this as opposed to end with it. It's kind of business, but it's important for me. It's important for the show. I'm going to ask you for your signature on something.

[Barack Obama]

Absolutely. What do we got?

[Marc Maron]

Well, I'll tell you.

[Barack Obama]

Is it a commutation? I can't do that anymore.

[Marc Maron]

No, this is. I created this pseudo legal document. This is our last episode, and this is something I wrote, and it's honest, but I wanted to witness. And you're so to all concerned. This is dated 1013 25, the date of the last show. I, Marc Maron, hereby formally release Brendan McDonald from the Professional responsibility of listening to me talk. From now and in perpetuity, Brendan has listened to me talk no less than 10,000 hours over the last 22 years. Often several hours in one sitting.

[Barack Obama]

That's a lot.

[Marc Maron]

Even more than I've listened to myself talking. Brendan is free to talk to me socially, but that is entirely up to him. If he chooses to do so, I will be delighted and promise not to abuse the privilege. It has been a life changing ride on my yammering and I am forever grateful to Brendan for keeping me at my best.

[Barack Obama]

I am more than happy.

[Marc Maron]

I'm gonna sign it.

[Barack Obama]

You sign it. I will witness it. And this is kind of a commutation I mean, I'm essentially. Brendan is released.

[Marc Maron]

Yes. It's a big day. From me.

[Barack Obama]

From you. You know, I have a sense that he kind of liked hanging out with you.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. It's been a hell of a partnership.

[Barack Obama]

I mean, it may be a little Stockholm syndrome.

[Marc Maron]

No, no, he won't let that happen.

[Barack Obama]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

I'm completely aware that I have not had that impact on his brain, because if I did, we'd both be in trouble. He's like, the better half of. He's protected me. You know, I don't say shit.

[Barack Obama]

And. And. And it'll go on.

[Marc Maron]

I'll record stuff, and in the back of my head, I'll think, like, Bren is not gonna. He's not gonna leave that in.

[Barack Obama]

No. Yeah, it's. Well, you gotta. You gotta have. He's like your super ego.

[Marc Maron]

That's exactly right. And he's a functioning part of my memory.

[Barack Obama]

Yes.

[Marc Maron]

Like, I don't remember. Like, obviously, I remember our conversation, but there's been 1600 and more, almost 1700 conversations.

[Barack Obama]

That's a lot. So tell me how you're feeling. Look, first of all, congratulations. Yeah. Second of all, I'm honored to be on your last show. How are you feeling about this whole thing? Transition, Moving on from this thing that has been one of the defining parts of your career?

[Marc Maron]

Sixteen years. Yes. I mean, well, I mean, I. Maybe you could help me. I feel okay. I feel like I'm sort of ready for the break, but. But there is sort of a fear there of, you know, what do we. What do I do now? I mean, I'm busy.

[Barack Obama]

Right.

[Marc Maron]

But not unlike your job. I'm going to compare my job to the president, you know, is that.

[Barack Obama]

I think it's pretty simple.

[Marc Maron]

Thank you. I've got a lot of people who, over the last 16 years, have grown to rely on me.

[Barack Obama]

Yes. And you've got a lot of fans just around. Yeah. In unlikely places.

[Marc Maron]

Oh, yeah. As in here.

[Barack Obama]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. But, like, you know, they need something, Right. That there is a feeling of, like, how am I going to feel, you know, less alone? How am I going to deal with my mental this or that? And how am I going to find, you know, a way to exist in the world that we're living in? I mean, I'm not offering them solutions, but I am commiserating, and it's comforting.

[Barack Obama]

They trust you.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Barack Obama]

And they feel as if what you're going through and what they're going through occupies a similar space. And so they don't feel like they're traveling this journey that can be frightening alone sometimes.

[Marc Maron]

That's right.

[Barack Obama]

And, yeah, there's a power in the human voice that you. You grow attached to.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. So when you left, what did you do for your mental health with the.

[Barack Obama]

Weight of, well, look, how old are you now?

[Marc Maron]

I'm 62.

[Barack Obama]

Right. So, you know, you've still got a couple of chapters left. And my theory was somebody gave me advice right before I was leaving office, and it was, don't rush into what the next thing is. Take a beat and take some satisfaction looking backwards and saying, huh, you know what? Didn't get everything done that I wanted. It wasn't always exactly how I planned it, but there's a body of work there that I'm proud of.

[Marc Maron]

Right.

[Barack Obama]

You know, pat yourself on the back for a second. Just be a little brain dead for a while. I read a bunch of books that had been stacked up. I had a big deficit with my wife that I had to kind of work my way out of. Right. So we went on a lot of trips and hung out and just had nice dinners and slept in. And then I think what this is an opportunity for you? It was an opportunity for me was figuring out, all right, what's my next highest and best use? What's a new purpose that scratches that itch? And it may not come to you right away. The podcast was kind of a random thing, right. You said, let's try this out. And you didn't know it was gonna go for 16 years, I assume, when you did the first show.

[Marc Maron]

No, we didn't know anything.

[Barack Obama]

You didn't know anything. You were trying to figure it out. But you probably have an inkling of what you just described about people trusting you, you connecting partly. Cause you're willing to be vulnerable in front of people and kind of let them know, you know, what's going on inside your gut. There's a power to that. What's another way of channeling it? Right. That may be different than you playing a character in a movie or even you doing stand up. There's something more raw, honest, exposed about what you do when you're just having a conversation and connecting with people. And so the question is, well, is there another way for me to catch that?

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Barack Obama]

You know, but you don't have to rush into it. I guess my main thing would be, you know, take your time. Unless you really got some bills to pay.

[Marc Maron]

No, no, I'm okay. But, like, it feels like I remember when you left and, you know, there is this sort of a vacuum and in terms of like my, obviously my responsibility to my audience is different, but how do you sort of, you know, did you feel the weight of that responsibility?

[Barack Obama]

Yeah, I mean, what was unusual for me was obviously a lot of what I represented, a lot of what Michelle and I had tried to project, the values, our thinking about America. You know, my successor seemed to represent the opposite. Right. Not seemed, did.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Barack Obama]

And so I think there was a lot of anger, a lot of sadness, some fear among a big chunk of the country. And one of the problems with the American political system is although we have political parties, we don't have a parliamentary system. So basically the president, in my case Democrat, I leave office and there's no obvious person who's now the shadow prime minister, the leader of the party for the Democrats. Right. And so there were a lot of terrific people who were doing good work, but we have this weird situation where you don't have a designated person who's speaking on behalf of the whole party. So I actually found myself drawn back in to day to day politics or commentary more than I had wanted to.

[Marc Maron]

Be after the second term.

[Barack Obama]

Yeah. In 2017, 2018. And I thought I was gonna be able to remove myself more from being out there in public and was gonna be able to concentrate on what I really wanted to do, which was coach the next generation of leadership.

[Marc Maron]

Sure.

[Barack Obama]

Move from player to coach, essentially. And I kept on being asked to comment on news of the day and look at this outrage and why aren't you out there more and that kind of thing. And look, that's flattering and it's an indication that you made a connection with people.

[Marc Maron]

Sure.

[Barack Obama]

But I tried to be a little bit disciplined about recognizing that I'd moved on to a new phase where I did not have formal power. I have some hopefully moral suasion, some credibility, but I didn't have formal power. And so more than anything, for the long term, what I could do that would be most helpful would be to start promoting, lifting up, shining a spotlight on that next generation of leadership and talent, new voices. Because part of what also happens is as you get older, Michelle and I joke about this. No matter how much you want to pretend otherwise, you're starting to get a little out of touch. You're not completely plugged into the zeitgeist.

[Marc Maron]

And it happens naturally.

[Barack Obama]

It just happens. I mean, look, I don't. My brain doesn't register. TikTok.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, mine either.

[Barack Obama]

The same way that it does my 16 year old niece. Right, right.

[Marc Maron]

You got to get a guy to.

[Barack Obama]

Do it for you, it's not just the technology itself, it's that I'm not plugged in, I'm not relating to the cultural, you know, stream in the same way that somebody who's 20 or 25 or even 35 is.

[Marc Maron]

But that's an interesting point, is that, you know, human connection, you know, TikTok. And like when you and I did the podcast 2015, the landscape was not as glutted. You know, Instagram didn't have the power it does. TikTok, I don't even know if it was around.

[Barack Obama]

No, not that I remember.

[Marc Maron]

And you know, there was a way of making a real connection. And it seems like a lot of these platforms now, like TikTok is just an inadvertently degradation of stuff. Like, I know when I talk to you and I can feel it and you can hear it, that there's a human connection. And it seems like that's necessary.

[Barack Obama]

Yeah, listen, I've been wrestling with this for a while. People talk about me being the first digital president and that's true. Obviously the Internet existed before me, but when I came into office in 2009, the smartphone was not yet widely around. And so the smartphone comes out around 2010. Facebook, Twitter, a lot of social media is just taking off.

[Marc Maron]

It seemed optimistic.

[Barack Obama]

It did, right. So there's all this sense of this is human connection. My campaign wouldn't work. I joke about the fact that I was an early adapter of all this social media. Not because, by the way, I was so smart. It was that my campaign was broke enough that I had to rely on a bunch of 20 and 25 year olds volunteering in our office. And they'd say like, hey, Senator, this is a website. I said, ah, website, great. You know, sounds good, sounds good. And say, so you can have pictures and you can have even video on there and see this little box? Like people can click it and they can contribute money. Right? And I'd be like, really? That's good. Well, that seems useful. And then they'd say, and this one they can like volunteer. And I'd be like, well, that's great. Yeah, let's do that. And so I probably, I mean, part of the reason I was elected was we were adapting all these new media. But this dates myself when I talk to audiences. I was like, my social media, our social media was MySpace and Meetup. Now Meetup is the one that I always tell people is the most interesting to me.

[Marc Maron]

I don't even know what it is. I missed it.

[Barack Obama]

So Meetup was. It was a Social media.

[Marc Maron]

Early.

[Barack Obama]

Yeah, early application. And you could send, basically text over. So let's say there were a bunch of volunteers up in Idaho, and Idaho is not a big blue state with a lot of delegates, so we don't have the resources to send a whole staff, paid staff, up to Idaho. But we have a few volunteers, some people, some supporters. They send us a message saying, hey, we're Idahoans for Obama, and we'd love to build a. We think you can win this state. And so we go, all right, so we'd send a bunch of information through meetup, and we'd give them the app. And basically what the app would do is you could send out, here's Obama's positions on things, here's dates of debates and this and that. But the main thing it did, hence the name, was it would help these volunteers organize themselves to meet up in person. In person?

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Barack Obama]

In a church basement, in a bar, in a VFW hall, whatever. And what I always tell people was wonderful about this rudimentary app was they'd show up when they actually met in person, and maybe they were assuming that they all fought the same way and had the same positions on everything. And they'd show up at some Obama volunteer meeting, and you'd have what looked like an ex army sergeant with a crew cut, and you'd have a young black woman with a nose ring, and you'd have a suburban mom with some kids. And it turned out that by virtue of meeting a person, you kind of realize people are a little more complicated.

[Marc Maron]

Sure.

[Barack Obama]

Maybe they don't agree with me on everything. Maybe they're. And that's a good thing. Right. So it creates this friction and this interest, and it forced people to kind of say, all right, well, you know, it turns out that I don't have to agree with everything to work with somebody.

[Marc Maron]

Right.

[Barack Obama]

And then out of those meetings, they'd have to go out and start knocking on doors. And that's the ultimate meetup, because now you're forcing yourself to talk to strangers who definitely don't agree with you on stuff. But there was that sense of human interaction that gave people a sense of how somebody could be a good guy but also have blind spots. Somebody could be. Seem like a real jerk. And yet there's this redeeming quality. It's the same sense that you get living in a neighborhood, right? Which is like you go to the soccer game and all the parents are sitting around, and some guy or gal may not be your cup of tea, but then you see them Hug their kid and you go, oh, you know what?

[Marc Maron]

He's all right.

[Barack Obama]

He's all right.

[Marc Maron]

And that's foundational to democracy working.

[Barack Obama]

Correct.

[Marc Maron]

And what happens now is that with us and them and with all these social media platforms being individuals, reality. So there's no conversation. You just got people blasting away at your face all day.

[Barack Obama]

And the whole reeling thing, the algorithm.

[Marc Maron]

Yes, yes, yes.

[Barack Obama]

It does capture your mind and send you down a very narrow track in a way that. And it's interesting for me, I said, like, my brain doesn't work that way. Right. But I'll be honest with you. With me, it's mostly like sports videos.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, sure.

[Barack Obama]

But I see how this mechanism works where you can just get on a track and you will suddenly be consumed by this thing for half an hour and you look up and you've wasted a whole bunch of time. But what it's also done is it has narrowed your world significantly. And if. If you get on a political or social track on those reels, it's hard to break.

[Marc Maron]

It'll break your brain.

[Barack Obama]

It'll break your brain.

[Marc Maron]

It's so terrifying and disturbing that where you don't. And also the dopamine part of it, it's that people don't have necessarily. Whether they do or not, it'll annihilate their sense of values. It'll annihilate principles in a way, because it's works them up by delivering this thing.

[Barack Obama]

Well, it is well known. I mean, this has been documented, the design of phones, the way social media apps are set up. A lot of that is science based. That arose out of figuring out how to make addiction.

[Marc Maron]

Right.

[Barack Obama]

Figuring out how to make slot machines.

[Marc Maron]

Sure, sure.

[Barack Obama]

I mean, there's a reason why all these pings and lights stuff comes up on your phone when notifications come, if you haven't silenced it on your phone. Right. Just that sense of. The only game I really play on my phone is Word with Friends with Pete Sousa, my old photographer from the.

[Marc Maron]

White House took our picture.

[Barack Obama]

Yeah. And it's just a way for us to stay in touch.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Barack Obama]

There's a very particular ping that comes up when he's played. And if I haven't turned my phone off, I could be in the middle of negotiations on a nuclear treaty and that thing goes off. There's a part of me that's like, you know what? I wonder what he played. Right. So all that is shaping the political environment in ways that even when you and I talked in. Was it 2015, that didn't exist. Now, the interesting thing is podcasting. Obviously, it's gotten segmented and it's getting chopped up so that people don't listen to a whole conversation.

[Marc Maron]

On the video.

[Barack Obama]

Yeah, on the video and all that stuff. There is still, I think, a power in just people listening to conversations if they listen to the whole thing. Sure. That, I think, is different. You and Rogan, I guess, came up, started right around the same time. Right. And it was interesting to me when people started criticizing, I don't know, Bernie or somebody else for going on Rogan. It's like, well, why wouldn't you? Yeah, of course, if you have time to go have a conversation with somebody, then that is consistent with democracy to me, engaging in a honest conversation that's not just yelling, not just trying to score points, but. All right, I'm going to take time to listen, and then I'm going to share how I'm thinking about things.

[Marc Maron]

Still valuable.

[Barack Obama]

That part of it is valuable. And the fact that we can have access to that, we can in some ways participate in that conversation, I think is actually not the big problem. The problem that happens with podcasts is that they get all chopped up and then it gets put up on the video stream and the content economy.

[Marc Maron]

The one thing that we did was always keep it audio. So then we were kind of. It's harder to. To clip audio correct and full. And the people that listen to my show are in for the whole conversation. And I think what you're talking about, which, you know, I try to kind of understand or wrap my brain around, is that there's a tribalization happening in terms of even if Bernie goes on, Joe, you know that, you know, Bernie is focused and he knows what he wants to say. But, you know, when it's taken out of context or it's, you know, solely looked at by a bubble of people, that the message can become obscured. Right. And diminished.

[Barack Obama]

Yeah, but look, there's this young state rep. James Tirico, who was on there a while back out of Texas.

[Marc Maron]

Oh, that guy's good, right?

[Barack Obama]

He's terrific. Really talented young man. And, you know, it does require a certain confidence in your actual convictions to debate and have a conversation with somebody who disagrees with you on a whole bunch of stuff.

[Marc Maron]

What makes him so good, though? Because there is something grounded about him that you had it, too.

[Barack Obama]

You know what? So in our foundation, a lot of the work that I do is working with young civic leaders, political leaders, journalists, human rights lawyers, not just here in the United States, but around the world. And one of the first things I say to them is, know what you really believe. Right. Like that's your starting point. Right. And first of all, if you understand your convictions, you got a moral compass, you got a code. You've. You've spent time wrestling with what it is that you care about and what you believe.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Barack Obama]

Then it's a lot easier now to be open and actually listen to other people as opposed to constantly trying to beat off anybody who might contradict your current perspective. And I think a guy like him, his starting point is, let me say what I believe. And it doesn't mean that anybody in public life, and by the way, anybody who's married, anybody who's in a relationship, it doesn't mean that you can't practice the art of diplomacy, that you can't say it compromised in ways that are more likely to be received. Right. But I think now more than ever, what people long for and the word authenticity gets overused. I think what people long for is some core integrity that seems absent. Just a sense that, you know, the person seems to walk the walk, doesn't just talk the talk.

[Marc Maron]

Well, there's a vulnerability to that.

[Barack Obama]

Yes.

[Marc Maron]

And there's a vulnerability to, you know, having that integrity and having those principles where if you're gonna do it, you know, straight.

[Barack Obama]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

That you have to leave yourself open to what's gonna come back at you and still stand strong.

[Barack Obama]

Correct. And sometimes it's gonna be uncomfortable.

[Marc Maron]

Painful.

[Barack Obama]

Yeah. Look, and I think that that's, you know, there's been a lot of post mortem about Democrats and progressives, and I saw your stand up where you said, we figured out how to be so.

[Marc Maron]

Annoying, we annoyed the average American into fascism.

[Barack Obama]

Yeah. Which cracked me up because I wasn't as funny about saying this, but even four, five, six years ago, I'd say, you can't just be a scold all the time. You can't constantly lecture people without acknowledging that you've got some blind spots too, and that life's messy. And so the, the vulnerability, I think, comes in. In saying, all right, I've got some core convictions, I've got beliefs that I'm not going to compromise, but I'm also not going to assert that I am so righteous and so pure and so insightful that there's not the possibility that maybe I'm wrong on this. Sure. Or that other people, if they don't say things exactly the way I say them or see things exactly the way I do, that somehow they're bad people. And so there was this weird What I saw in, and I think this was a fault of some progressive language was almost asserting a holier than thou superiority. That's not that different from what we used to joke about coming from the right and the Moral Majority and a certain fundamentalism about how to think about stuff that I think was dangerous, because.

[Marc Maron]

It was also a single issue that if you have progressives and how you straddled this stuff in general with being constantly trolled and attacked by the right, and then you have the left who are like, well, he droned a lot of people.

[Barack Obama]

And then it never goes, I'd get my ass kicked.

[Marc Maron]

Right. But it seemed like the intention on your behalf. And I noticed this is something that happened to me recently. I was in Canada for a couple days, and I was talking to somebody up there, and I said, the best thing that, that Trump has done is bring your country together.

[Barack Obama]

They do seem to be rallying around.

[Marc Maron]

The maple leaf, but it was fundamentally like, despite whatever differences they have, and it is a parliamentary system up there, but as individuals, that however they were leaning culturally, right or left, that when the bullying started and the tariffs started and the threats started, they were able to go down to their core beliefs of what their country meant.

[Barack Obama]

Yes.

[Marc Maron]

And. And what it. What it meant to them.

[Barack Obama]

Correct.

[Marc Maron]

And. And how they were, you know, going to come together and, and, you know, rebuild from the inside.

[Barack Obama]

Right.

[Marc Maron]

So we don't have to deal with this. But it struck me as to, like, you know, well, how. How are. And I know the answer to some level, how are we not capable of it? How is it that most people don't understand the. The civic responsibility or the civic structure of how this country is supposed to work outside of the people that are shamelessly against it?

[Barack Obama]

Yeah, look, I mean, I think the way I describe it, America has always had warring narratives. A lot of American history is a war of ideas.

[Marc Maron]

Right.

[Barack Obama]

And I gave a speech. Probably the speech that is closest to my heart, that I gave throughout my presidency was the speech I gave on the 50th anniversary of Selma, the march on Selma over the Edmund Pettus Bridge. And I talked about that clash being as important as Gettysburg or Appomattox. You've got, on one side John Lewis and a ragtag band of Pullman porters and maids and clergy and a couple rabbis and college kids. And they're marching from one side, and on the other side you've got folks with billy clubs on horseback and fire hoses and dogs and all that. And what John Lewis represented was the narrative that says we the people means just what it says, that we hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal. And on the other side was the fact of slavery and conquest and hierarchy and domination. And if you didn't have property, you didn't vote, and women weren't involved. And that was always part of America, too. Right. And the question has always been, can we pull off this experiment in which people are showing up from all over the place, they're not tied together by blood, they don't necessarily worship God in the same way or worship God at all. They speak different languages, they have all these weird foods, they show up with these odd customs, and some of them were dragged here in chains, and some of them had their land taken from them and their culture destroyed. Out of all that, can we create a. A shared creed that allows us to live peacefully together and get stuff done? And on the other side, there has always been the idea that, no, no, we the people means something very particular. Yeah. And so at each stage, and look, this led to ultimately Civil war. But even after Civil war, you got Jim Crow and Reconstruction and the Klan and you. There's always been this fight over what is the true story of America. And I believe deeply in this story that, yeah, if we can pull this off, if we can actually treat everybody with decency and respect and compromise and make democracy work, it shines a light for the entire world.

[Marc Maron]

Right.

[Barack Obama]

And the other path of tribe and a zero sum game, and everything's dog eat dog in a competition, and you try to take advantage of the other person because they're going to try to take advantage of you. And if they don't look like you and they don't believe what you do, and they have a different faith than you, that they're a threat to you, that is the path that leads to things like World War II and the Holocaust and slavery and Pol Pot and Rwanda. We see how that plays out. And so the question is, you know, can we? Can the better, in my mind, can that better story win? And I think that after World War II, you and I are basically the same generation. We grew up in a monoculture, and as flawed as it was, you know, with TV and Walter Cronkite, and we were all watching the same things. We were seeing the same things, we were listening to the same things. There were groups that weren't represented. There was bias in it. Women didn't have power and were stereotyped in all kinds of awful ways. The LGBT community was just invisible and forced in the closet There was all kinds of flaws to it, but there was a common narrative that said, yeah, we can all pledge allegiance to the flag. We can all feel that we are full fledged, true blooded Americans because we believe in these ideals. And what you're seeing right now is a reassertion of this idea of like, nope, if you don't look a certain way, you don't think a certain way, you don't practice a certain faith, you know, you're not a real American. And I started to see this during my. That's what birtherism was about. That's what, when Sarah Palin was talking about real Americans versus, I guess the unreal Americans, it was that, that was already boiling over. And I say all that because I think that I think the majority, the vast majority of Americans, I still, I think, still believe in that creed, that sense of unity, that sense of a shared narrative. But it's not reinforced a lot in the media. And that's where we get back to this whole issue of social media. You don't hear that sense of what we have in common except during the super bowl and a couple other maybe during the Olympics.

[Marc Maron]

A sense of unity, a sense of people helping each other. I believe that what you're talking about politically, in terms of what we spoke about earlier, that people are different and some may have different beliefs, but there was a compromise that could be met and that tolerance in and of itself is conditional to democracy.

[Barack Obama]

Working forbearance, I think is the formal term that political science use. You have to put up with folks.

[Marc Maron]

That's right.

[Barack Obama]

As long as they're not actively hurting you. Right. You've got to put up with them and you can battle them and ultimately it gets sorted out in politics and the winners get to move their agenda forward and the losers lick their wounds and come back later. But there's always that sense of, yeah, but we're not going to call each other vermin and we're not going to try to crush you if you lose, we're not going to target you.

[Marc Maron]

But the brains have been broken through, exploiting grievance and anger. And you know, in talking about the left, that the fact that so many decided to not vote out of protest because they didn't feel that the, you know, the situation in Israel, the ethnic cleansing of Gaza and whatnot was not going to be dealt with by Kamala or however that goes. So you get this protest vote of people not willing to make a compromise for what you used to talk about as the incremental progress.

[Barack Obama]

Yeah, well, and look, that's the thing that I spent a lot of time talking to younger leaders about this and there's no simple solution to it. But I will say that part of what a liberal democracy requires is an acceptance of partial victory. Right. And not perfection. You know, when I was in the White House, I'd sit around on any issue with my cabinet or my staff, senior staff, and we'd go around analyzing everything. And at some point I'd say, all right, I think I've got all the information. If we do X, is this going to make things better? Because. And I'd say I'd tell them better is good. Yeah, we're not going to get to perfect, Right? If you're telling me that the Affordable Care act is going to insure 50 million people, do I think that's better than if we had a, if we were starting from scratch and I could get a single payer plan instituted and get that through Congress and suddenly we had universal health care and we had taken the profit motive out of do I think that would probably be a smarter way to do it. Absolutely right. But since I can't do that, I don't have the votes for that. How about this?

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, we can make it better.

[Barack Obama]

We can make it better.

[Marc Maron]

Right.

[Barack Obama]

And you know, this sense that things aren't worth it unless we get everything we want, I think is either a recipe for disappointment in a democracy, but also maybe in life, or it leads to this weird cynicism where you just withdraw entirely. And that's part of what happened to too many of our folks. I think we decided, all right, if I'm not going to get everything, then that justifies doing nothing. It's interesting. I had a conversation with Malia, my daughter, it was probably three, four years ago, and she was saying to me, dad, you know, I'm talking to a bunch of my friends and this climate change thing, you know, they're just, everybody just feels like it's hopeless now. It looks like, you know, we just keep on throwing this crud into the air. People aren't listening to science and we're going to blow through these targets that the scientists tell us if we don't keep it at 2% Celsius increase, we're going to have these catastrophes and it doesn't seem like there's any chance for us to do it. So a bunch of my friends now say, what's the point? It's too late. So what should I tell them? And I said, well, you know what, it's true. That we probably will blow through this target because it's really hard for humans, it's never been done before, to completely re engineer our energy sources in one generation. And there's greed and profit motives and just getting people organized and legacy systems. It's hard. But actually we're making some progress. I said, you know, if we're able to stop the increase at 2.5 instead of 3, there will still be a lot of disruptions and flooding and drought and wildfires and some bad stuff will happen. But you know what, that half a centigrade difference, that could make a difference in a billion people's lives, right?

[Marc Maron]

Totally.

[Barack Obama]

And so I told her, I said, you tell your friends. Well, that's worth working for. Yeah. It doesn't mean that we won't have some really serious problems because of climate change.

[Marc Maron]

But that's the reality.

[Barack Obama]

But that's the reality. But you know what, that half percent difference, that could be entire coastal villages. It could be what happens in Bangladesh where hundreds of thousands or millions of people can eat instead of not eat. It could affect whether or not people can make a living where they live as opposed to trying to cross the oceans to migrate to places where they can. And all the political conflicts that come with that, that mentality of understanding we should be doing better than we're doing. It's a shame that we're stuck with this crazy short sighted approach to climate, but let's see what we can get done. That, I think, is the mentality that all of us have to carry with us.

[Marc Maron]

Well, I think what you were talking about, about cynicism and disengagement is now there's a level of fear.

[Barack Obama]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

That is, is real.

[Barack Obama]

Right. And justified.

[Marc Maron]

Totally. So, you know, what happens, you know, in terms of what we're talking about, all the things that were, that you live through and, and we lived through whether we were kids or not, the progress that was made, civil rights, gay rights, women's rights, you know, things, policies that were meant to, you know, make an attempt at sort of expanding democratic ideas. And you always had this core group of the other side that have been, you know, trying to dismantle this from, you know, since the New Deal. But now, you know, and look, the, the left and, and people like me, you know, you, you throw around the words, you know, fascism in relation to authority, just willy nilly.

[Barack Obama]

Right.

[Marc Maron]

And you, you talk about authoritarianism as if it's something that happens everywhere else. And I think right now you have a lot of people who are still locked into this like it could never happen here. But at some point, don't we have to wake up and say it's happening?

[Barack Obama]

I think there is no doubt that a lot of the norms, civic habits, expectations, institutional guardrails that we had, that we took for granted for our democracy have been weakened deliberately. I don't think they're destroyed, but I think they have been damaged and they've been systematic about it. When I used to travel around the world, this is back when democracy promotion was still bipartisan. Right? Yeah. George Bush was for it, Bill Clinton was for it, I was for it. Marco Rubio apparently was for it. Right. So it wasn't controversial for me to go to other countries and say, you know what, it's a good idea for militaries to be under civilian control because when you have military that can direct force against their own people, that is inherently corrupting. And so when you now start seeing the politicization of the military deliberately. Right.

[Marc Maron]

They just landed in Chicago.

[Barack Obama]

Yeah. When you have what looks like a deliberate end run around, not just a concept, but a law that's been around for a long time, Posse Comitatus, that says you don't use our military on domestic soil unless there is an extraordinary emergency of some sort, that when you see an administration suggest that ordinary street crime is an insurrection or, or a terrorist act or a terrorist act, that is a genuine effort to, to weaken how we have understood democracy. And that was understood by Democrats and Republicans. I always try to, I mean, it's almost too easy of a thought experiment. If I had sent in the National Guard into Texas and just said, you know what, A lot of problems in Dallas, a lot of crime there, and I don't care what Governor Abbott says, I'm going to kind of take over law enforcement because I think things are out of control. It is mind boggling to me how Fox News would have responded. Yeah, I mean, there were times where I remember, there was a moment, I don't remember what year this was, where the military just had regular exercises in Texas out of one of the bases, Fort Hood or Ted Cruz and a number of other folks were out there lending credence to the fact that I was preparing for the whole black helicopter, One world government. I was about to take over Texas. This is like a sitting US Senator kind of retweeting about what's going on with these exercises.

[Marc Maron]

Secret ops.

[Barack Obama]

I didn't even have any. I didn't monitor military exercises because you know what, that was the Pentagon's job. That was the Secretary of Defense. And the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the cocoms, that was their job, to prepare and focus on military readiness. And then they'd report to me. The point is that we have blown through just in the last six months, a whole range of not simply assumptions, but rules and laws and practices that were put in place to ensure that nobody's above the law and that we don't use the federal government to simply reward our friends and punish our enemies. The same thing's obviously happening in the Justice Department. So people are right to be concerned. The interesting thing and what I've been trying to do when I've been speaking about this publicly is just to remind folks, just as was true during the McCarthy era and has been true throughout our history, what's required in these situations is a few folks standing up and giving courage to other folks. And then more people stand up and kind of go like, yeah, no, that's not who we are. That's not, that's not our idea of America. We don't want masked folks with rifles and machine guns patrolling our streets. We want cops on the beat who know the neighborhood. Neighborhood and the kids around. And that's how we keep the peace around here. We don't want, you know, kangaroo courts and trumped up charges. That's what happens in other places that we used to scold for doing that. We want, like our court system and our Justice Department and our prosecutors to be and our FBI to be just playing things straight and looking at the facts and not meddling in politics the way we've seen lately. And I think if enough people start not being in a fetal position, but also not being just not worrying about it, detach and detach from it, but being vigilant but also saying, you know what? Yeah, we can stand up to this. We can call it like we see it. We need people who have whatever platforms they have to be able to say, no, that's not who we are. And to be willing to get attacked on X by whoever for doing that. And it's not easy. Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

Because sometimes you fear for your life. Yeah.

[Barack Obama]

And there's this whole process of doxxing. And I always used to, Michelle and I talk about the fact that a lot of our friends, we used to call them civilians because if they got criticized on the comment page about something, they'd be freaked out. We're like, you know what I mean? We've had so much incoming over the course of 10 years now. We chose it. Or at least I chose it, as Michelle will point out. And then she was subjected to it. You do get a tougher skin. But I understand how it's hard when suddenly your email or your phone is filled up with hostile, nasty trolling garbage. Trolling garbage, right. And you've gotten used to it too. But I tell you, it's not like we're not at the stage where you have to be like Nelson Mandel and be in a 10 by 12 jail cell for 27 years. Not yet. And break rocks. We're not at that point right now. There's just a little discomfort. And so when I say, for example, if you're a law firm, you know, you saying to. We're going to represent who we want and we're going to stand up for what we think is our core mission of upholding the law. And maybe we'll lose some business for that, but that's what we believe. That's what's needed. If you're a university president, say, well, you know what, this will hurt if we lose some grant money from the federal government, but that's what endowments are for. Let's see if we can ride this up. Because what we're not going to do is compromise our basic academic independence. If you're a business, you say, you know what, we think it's important because of what this country is to hire people from different backgrounds. And we're not going to be bullied into saying that we can only hire people or promote people based on some criteria that's been cooked up by Steve Miller. We all have this capacity, I think, to take a stand. And ultimately this goes back to something I said earlier about convictions. If convictions don't cost anything, then they're really just kind of fashion. They're not really conviction. And I do think that our generation, yours and mine, Mark, because again, we're about the same age. We were so accustomed to things kind of getting better consistently over our lifetimes. A little less racist, a little less sexist, less homophobic, a little more generous. That it was easy, I think, to say, well, yeah, I'm a progressive, but it didn't really cost us anything. We could take positions on things that we thought were.

[Marc Maron]

Correct.

[Barack Obama]

Correct. Yeah, but they were never really tested. And so, well, here's the test. And I think ultimately a lot of people will pass, but I think they haven't realized yet. No, we're being tested right now. I think people. And that includes young people. Right. Like I understand there are consequences to the choices that we're making. If you decide not to vote, that's a Consequence if you are a Hispanic man and you're frustrated about inflation and so you decided, you know what, all that rhetoric about Trump doesn't matter. I'm just mad about inflation. And now your sons are being stopped in L. A because they look Latino.

[Marc Maron]

Maybe incarcerated for a few days and.

[Barack Obama]

Maybe without the ability to call anybody, might just be locked up. Well, that's a test. There's some clarity that's coming about right now that I wish it'd be great if we weren't tested this way. But you know what? We probably need to be shaken out of our complacency anyway.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. And what's interesting about the test and standing up and what you said, the difference between fashion and, you know, standing up is that people, if people are comfortable in their own lives and, and they can convince themselves that it doesn't affect them, I mean, that's the biggest challenge.

[Barack Obama]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

And. And also on the list of, of, you know, universities and law firms and businesses is that, you know, corporations are different animal in relation to. To the bottom line, into whatever, which way the wind blows politically. And that certainly with the destruction of DEI policy, they're not beholden to toe a democratic line. And that becomes the biggest fear in terms of certain freedoms.

[Barack Obama]

Well, look, I mean, you saw what happened with Kimmel, and I mean, the consolidation of media. It's interesting, we were talking about there used to be sort of a monoculture, three TV stations and pbs, but partly because it was coming out of World War II, and I think people had been sufficiently scared and traumatized by what had happened in terms of propaganda and Hitler and all this. We set up a bunch of structures that created journalistic standards and fact checking and clear lines between opinion and fact. And now we've got media's just as concentrated, but none of the rules. Right, right. And it can feed some of our worst impulses and tell each segment of people out there, you know, just feed back their own biases and prejudices back to them and make money on it. This whole point about corporations, this is something I've been thinking a lot about also, is that I do think so much of what's been driving political instability everywhere is this widening, massive gulf in opportunity, wealth, income within countries, between countries. I mean, the idea that some people now have 3,400 billion dollars on their way to a trillion dollars, and you've got ordinary people still trying to figure out how to eat, eat and pay the rent, that is driving a lot of this. Right. And part of what I think we have to spend more Time thinking about is some old fashioned values that aren't based just on money and how much you got and material concerns. And I am somebody who believes that market based economics is actually not only the best way to create enough stuff for everybody to be okay, but I also think it's tied to freedom State run economics generally don't work very well. But so much of our culture now, so much of what we teach our kids is geared around buying stuff and having stuff and posting it on Instagram.

[Marc Maron]

And then winning to some degree.

[Barack Obama]

Right. Winning is now defined solely by material goods, how much you got, and to some degree, fame, that's become another currency. Right, right. And I do think part of what our conversation needs to be more about is, and it used to come out of the church or the stories we told our kids was this sense of, oh, you know what, character matters, honesty matters, community and family and loyalty and kindness matters. Those are the stories that. That's part of our political project. Right. Is reaffirming that stuff. I think you were asking how I navigated some of these conflicts. And I'd get attacked from the right and I'd get attacked from the left. One way I did that was trying to tell people what I really thought. But you know, the other thing was I actually had some pretty old fashioned values. Even if I had progressive or newfangled ideas, if I talked about trans issues, I wasn't talking down to people and saying, oh, you're a bigot. I'd say, you know what, it's tough enough being a teenager. Let's treat all kids decently. Why would we want to see kids bullied or shamed or shamed? Why would we want to do that? Why wouldn't we want to just, you know what if it was our kid? Right? And I think spending more time talking about why those values are important, not being cynical about them, not being ironic about it, but saying, no, no, that stuff matters. Sure, that would make a difference.

[Marc Maron]

All right, well, we've got our work cut out for us.

[Barack Obama]

Yeah, you know what? But I think we're going to be okay. And I think that part of the reason you had such a big fan base during this 16 year run is there was a core decency to you and the conversations you had. Maybe slightly edited by Brendan. Yeah, thankfully that I think speaks to who we are and we can't take this stuff for granted. But my experience is most people are really decent and I think that's why when they hear somebody else who is, it gives them courage and gives them hope, and you should be proud of having done that.

[Marc Maron]

Well, thank you, Mr. President, and thank you. I'm glad I made the trip. You came to my house the first time. I'll come here and I hope to talk to you again.

[Barack Obama]

We'll meet halfway next time.

[Marc Maron]

Okay, buddy?

[Barack Obama]

Thanks, man. All right.

[Marc Maron]

So that's it. I hope that was helpful. It was certainly an honor for me, and I was very moved that he took my work into such consideration. And thank you to his amazing team who made it a smooth undertaking and also really helped us get it all together. And again, if you didn't listen to Thursday, I think I addressed almost everything I needed to address as a thank you to you and as a farewell in terms of how I felt. And now I think it's important that we thank you. Some people that were essential to this show. John Montana, who created our theme music. Nathan Smith, who created our logo. Olivia Wingate, my manager when we started. David Martin, my manager now. Kit Pleasant, who has been on board for the last five years. Kelly Von Valkenberg, Nikki Herarian, Walter Heyman, Frank Capello, Ashley Barnhill, Sam Varela, Stash Koussaki for all their assistance through the years. Joanna Jordan, Bella Harkins, Lindsey Johnson, Abigail Parsons, Ashley Wheeler. And everyone who booked anyone on the show. Chris LoPresto for his work on the Full Marin, Don McDonald and Owen MacDonald for letting Brendan McDonald do the work. And of course, all our guests and of course, all our listeners. All of you. Boomer Lives Monkey and La Fonda, Cat Angels Everywhere.