Former President Obama, speaking on stand-up comedian Marc Maron’s final podcast on Monday, said the Trump administration’s policies are a “test” of whether universities, businesses, law firms and voters — including Republicans — will take a stand for the nation’s founding principles and values.
“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, ah, you know what, all that rhetoric about Trump doesn’t matter. ‘I’m just mad about inflation,’” Obama said. “And now your sons are being stopped in L.A. because they look Latino and maybe without the ability to call anybody, might just be locked up, well, that’s a test.”
In a more than hourlong discussion with Maron on the wildly popular “WTF With Marc Maron” podcast, the former Democratic president said current events could jolt Americans.
“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,” he said.
Obama also criticized some Democrats’ messaging as he touched on significant issues facing Californians and discussed the state of the nation’s democracy, core convictions and the weakening of institutional norms.
After Los Angeles-based Maron joked, “We’ve annoyed the average American into fascism,” Obama responded, “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,” Obama said in the interview, which recently took place in the former president’s Washington, D.C., office.
Faulting language used by some liberals as “holier than thou,” Obama argued that Democrats could remain true to their principles while respecting those with whom they disagreed.
“Saying, ‘Right, I’ve got some core convictions [and] 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,’” he said.
Obama’s remarks come as the Democratic Party faces a reckoning after losing the presidential election in 2024, in part because of declining support from the party’s base, notably minority voters.
Maron, a comedian and actor, launched his “WTF With Marc Maron” podcast and radio show in 2009. Interviews with guests such as actor Robin Williams, comedian Louis C.K., filmmaker Kevin Smith and “Saturday Night Live” creator Lorne Michaels often took place at his Highland Park home.
Obama’s 2015 interview in Maron’s garage became the podcast’s most popular episode at the time — downloaded nearly 740,000 times in the first 24 hours after it was posted.
On Monday, the former president criticized institutions for capitulating to President Trump’s demands. His words come as USC leaders are debating whether to agree to a White House proposal to receive favorable access to federal funding if they align with Trump’s agenda.
“If you’re a university president, say, well, you know what? This will hurt if we lose some grant money in the federal government, but that’s what endowments are for,” Obama said. “Let’s see if we can ride this out, because what we’re not going to do is compromise our basic academic independence.”
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