Former President Barack Obama was the swan song for Marc Maron‘s podcast, My Conversation With Marc Maron, on Monday (October 13), and 44 talked about everything from his desire to leave the spotlight after the 2016 presidential election to his concerns about the messaging of the current generation of Democrats with the host.
In the hour-long conversation, Obama talked about what it was like for him to pass the torch to Donald Trump. “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, my successor seemed to represent the opposite… not seemed, did. And so, I think there was a lot of anger, a lot of sadness, some fear among a big chunk of the country.”
Obama said that as a result, he was often called back in to be the face of the party even when he didn’t want to.
“There were a lot of terrific people who were doing good work, but we had this weird situation where you don’t have a designated person who’s speaking on behalf of the whole party. I actually found myself drawn back into the day-to-day politics or commentary… in 2017, 2018. And I thought I was going to be able to remove myself more from being out there in public, and was going to be able to concentrate on what I really wanted to do, which was coach the next generation of leadership, 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?’” While he said it was “flattering” because it means he left an impression.
Later in the conversation, he talked about the value of major podcasts, particularly that of Joe Rogan, who famously did not interview Kamala Harris ahead of the 2024 election, since she wasn’t able to come to Austin to do it in person.
Praising the “power” of conversations, Obama said, “It was interesting to me when people started criticizing Bernie [Sanders] or somebody else for going on Rogan. It’s like, why wouldn’t you? Yeah, of course, go. If you have time to go have a conversation with somebody, then that is consistent with democracy. To me, engaging in an honest conversation that’s not just yelling, not just trying to score points, but I’m going to take time to listen, and then I’m kind of sure how I’m thinking about things.”
As for the current state of his party, Obama had some sharp words for the far left wing and identity politics, saying, “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, 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, 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 moral majority.”
However, Obama also shared an optimistic viewpoint of all Americans, saying, “I think that the majority, the vast majority of Americans, still, I think believe in that creed, that sense of unity, that sense of a shared narrative, but it’s not reinforced a lot in the media.”
Check out the full interview embedded above.