{"id":300407,"date":"2025-10-13T17:00:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-13T17:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/300407\/"},"modified":"2025-10-13T17:00:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-13T17:00:09","slug":"marc-maron-interviews-barack-obama-in-final-podcast-episode","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/300407\/","title":{"rendered":"Marc Maron Interviews Barack Obama In Final Podcast Episode"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tMarc Maron<\/a> ended his podcast Monday after 16 years with special guest Barack Obama<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThis was the second appearance of the former president on WTF With Marc Maron, following his visit to Maron\u2019s Los Angeles garage studio about 10 tens ago while he was still in office. For Monday\u2019s interview, Maron traveled to Washington D.C. and talked to Obama about the process of moving on from a career-defining role, what to do with the responsibility attached to that and what to do with the current state of affairs in the U.S.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tMaron announced the end<\/a> of WTF this summer, saying he and his producing partner felt \u201cburnt out,\u201d after a run as one of the most streamed podcasts since it launched on Sept. 1, 2009. The episodes included many famous guests, including Obama, as well as Robin Williams and Paul McCartney, and offered a revealing look at Maron\u2019s own life, with the host often talking about his personal life, pet peeves and grudges and relationships with the guests on the show.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI feel like I\u2019m sort of ready for the break. But there is a sort of fear there of what do I do now? I mean, I\u2019m busy, right? But not unlike your job. I\u2019m gonna compare my job to the presidency now.\u00a0 I\u2019ve got a lot of people who over the last 16 years have grown to rely on me,\u201d Maron said to Obama on Monday\u2019s episode.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThey need something, right? There is a feeling of like, how am I going to feel, you know, less alone? How am I gonna deal with my mental this or that? And how am I gonna find a way to exist in the world that we\u2019re living in? I mean, I\u2019m not offering them solutions, but I am commiserating and it\u2019s comforting,\u201d he continued.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tObama then offered him the advice of not rushing into his next job, and taking stock of what he\u2019s built.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cSomebody gave me advice right before I was leaving office. And it was, don\u2019t rush into what the next thing is. Take a beat. And take some satisfaction looking backwards and saying you know what, didn\u2019t get everything done that I wanted. Wasn\u2019t always exactly how I planned it, but there\u2019s a body of work there that I\u2019m proud of,\u201d Obama said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tObama added that with his role, he still then had to act as the de facto Democratic leader and was still called on to give political commentary and messages of unity out of office, particularly as Donald Trump took over as his successor.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWhat 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. My successor seemed to represent the opposite. Not seemed, did. And so I think there was a lot of anger, lot of sadness, some fear among a big chunk of the country,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tObama then went on to describe the \u201cwarring narratives\u201d that have always been a part of America and have led to clashes and continue to divide the country. Maron also pointed to the feeling of \u201chopelessness\u201d among some on the left, including those who did not vote in the last election because of issues such as Gaza. Obama then spoke about the acceptance of \u201cpartial victory,\u201d pointing to the example of the Affordable Care Act and how universal health care would\u2019ve been ideal, but he didn\u2019t have the votes.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWhat a liberal democracy requires is an acceptance of partial victory,\u201d Obama said. \u201cThis sense that things aren\u2019t 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\u2019s part of what happened to too many of our folks.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tAsked about the current state of affairs, including the National Guard in Chicago and Portland, Obama called on Americans to stand up against these actions, adding that it may involve some discomfort, with companies losing some business or universities losing grants.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI 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. And I don\u2019t think they\u2019re destroyed, but I think they have been damaged. And they\u2019ve been systematic about it,\u201d Obama said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cJust as was true during the McCarthy era and has been true throughout our history, what\u2019s 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 \u2018That\u2019s not who we are. That\u2019s not our idea of America. We don\u2019t want masked folks with rifles and machine guns patrolling our streets,\u201d he continued.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tWhile Monday\u2019s episode was largely centered on the conversation with Obama, Maron delivered a heartfelt goodbye to his audience in the Oct. 9 episode reflecting on his loyal audience of listeners and the relationships they\u2019ve built over the last 16 years.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI am feeling grateful, I\u2019m feeling sad. It is a sense of loss, but it\u2019s not a bad one. It\u2019s just life. I mean, fuck. Really, really a lot of your input changed, my mind changed the way I looked at things. I really took to heart a lot of what many of you said to me in person, sometimes through emails and I really feel like you were a big part of my evolution or my evolving wisdom and perception,\u201d Maron said. \u201cYou really helped me. Yeah. I don\u2019t know man. I love you guys and I think you\u2019ll be okay without me. I\u2019m not entirely sure I\u2019ll be okay without you, but it has been quite a ride, quite an adventure, quite a life.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Marc Maron ended his podcast Monday after 16 years with special guest Barack Obama.\u00a0 This was the second…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":300408,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[11744,171,59952,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-300407","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-barack-obama","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-marc-maron","11":"tag-united-states","12":"tag-unitedstates","13":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300407","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=300407"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300407\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/300408"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=300407"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=300407"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=300407"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}