WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 613 - President Barack Obama

Episode Date: June 21, 2015

Marc welcomes the 44th President of the United States of America, Barack Obama, to the garage for conversation about college, fitting in, race relations, gun violence, changing the status quo, disappointing your fans, comedians, fatherhood and overcoming fear. And yes, this really happened. Sign up here for WTF+ to get the full show archives and weekly bonus material! https://plus.acast.com/s/wtf-with-marc-maron-podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Lock the gates! All right, let's do this. How are you folks? It's me, Mark. Mark Maron. This is WTF, my podcast. Welcome to it. I'm excited. I'm nervous. Trying not to freak out. I feel a little hazy in the mind. Didn't sleep great. Because the President of the United States is on the show today. He's coming over. It's not here now. But Secret Service people just keep looking in here like, who am I talking to?

Like, maybe the President slipped by the 50 or 60 people. Like, who's he talking to in the garage? Me, myself. It's been crazy. I can't really understand how this is happening. We've known this was going to happen for a little while, and we thought it would be a fun idea, a great thing, an honor to have the president stop by on this trip to Los

Angeles. I'm now formulating, you know, how am I going to talk to him like I talk to him? I'm a little nervous because he's the president and I've got to have a person in here. But that on top of the fact that, you know, they just swept my house with a dog. I had to hide my cats in the bedroom. They had to sweep that separately. There was a lot of panic. I was in, as you know, in Hawaii while a lot of this was going on.

My producer, Brendan McDonald, was dealing with a lot of pre-prep. But today, they've tented my entire driveway. I'm told there will be a sniper on the roof. There's something in here that looks like an armed yoga mat. I didn't ask too many questions about. There are Secret Service everywhere. There's people, three or four people, maybe five or six people out there with headphones on listening to this.

Again, the entire walk from the street, that section of the street where the motorcade is going to come up is tented. Oh, see, look at that. I should turn that off, right? Before the president gets here. I thought I had that off. of the street where the the motorcade is going to come up is tented oh see look at that i should turn that off right before the president gets here i thought i had that off anyways so there's a large tent all my neighbors they've closed down the entire neighborhood so there's i think people are excited but also annoyed at me but there's people that have uh made signs welcoming the president they're they're sitting in my neighbor's yard i've got a bunch of scattered notes here i have i put a lot of pressure on myself

about this kind of thing i i want to connect but i don't want to do a policy discussion i don't want to do a an interview that's been done before i'd like to connect with him as a person. I gotta hope that happens and happens with me not thinking that there's a LAPD all along the periphery of my house. There's a sniper on my neighbor's roof. There's LAPD on the street. There's Secret Service everywhere. The entire street is empty and it's just going to be me and President Barack Obama in my garage. And I know that he was at Tyler Perry's last night. So I'm a little, you know, I mean, I like my house, but I imagine it's going to be different. It's cozy.

It's cozy. I know he's at Chuck Lorre's and, you know, they were doing a different thing. And there's a lot of people. It's just going to be me and him in here. I've cleaned up a little bit. I've moved the piles into the house. Oh, man. All right.

Well, so that's what's happening. The next time you hear me, I'll be talking to the president of the United States in my garage. It's crazy. It's crazy. All right. I'm about to cry am i in the orange chair? Orange chair for you, Mr. President. Who's staying in the room? We're doing pictures. Oh, my gosh. This is pretty cool.

This is the place. This is where it happens. I like this, man. You do? I do. It's my whole life. Everything. But you're like a big cheese now, man.

You can't pretend like you're just some... What do you mean? Can I go on pretending? You can't pretend like you're some little guy in a garage. Should I move? You're not a garage. Should I move? You're not big time. Should I move? No.

Partly because of the knickknacks around here, man. Sure. It's the magic box. There's a lot of stuff going on in here. You got the give me shelter post. Sure, man. I got a weird collection of things. You got some drawings and pictures that we can't really discuss.

Right. Yeah, I got pictures over there. I got Dennis Hopper. I got, there's Muddy Waters. There's, yeah, just stuff. A lot of pictures of yourself. I mean, it's a little narcissistic. Well, I mean, you know, people send them to me, and I don't know that that i really notice it that they're all pictures of me maybe it's just comforting

the uh that's an old new yorker review of a one-man show i did there's the uh yeah that's great well thanks man bring back good memories every time you walk in here well you kind of remember well do you have that thing where like there's a lot of good memories but then sometimes i'm like do i need that thing anymore there's a book i didn't read that i've held on to for 30 years do i do i need to keep that you never know when uh when you when you're going to need it yeah gotta read that book i couldn't understand 20 years ago it could be the book you need in five years well you used to live around here i did yeah i was explaining to folks uh pasadena, these are my old haunts, man.

And how close is that in your memory? Does it come right back? Absolutely. Yeah. Through somewhat of a haze. I mean, it was college, so. How old were you? Like 20, right?

19? I was 19. And you lived right down the street. Right down the street. And how far away from you are you from that guy now? I mean, can you lock into that? Can you find that in yourself? You know, the truth is I'm pretty much the same guy in a lot of ways.

Yeah? Yeah. I started keeping a journal when I was around 20. Yeah. And, you know, kept it up until I went to law school. Yeah. So for about seven years. Sometimes I go back and I read this stuff, and I'm still the same guy, which is good.

Emotionally, or obviously not emotionally, but I mean, there's moments where you can sort of lock in. Like, what parts of your journal are you like, oh. Are there still struggles that you were having then that you have now? That you were having then that you have now? Well, that's where stuff's changed in the sense that stuff that was bugging you by the time you're 53, either you worked it out or you've just forgiven yourself and you've said, look, this is who I am. Oh, but I've got to write that down. Right. So I can just forgive myself? Well, you know, assuming that you're not hurting anybody.

No, but you know what I mean? I think that you, at that age, you're still trying to figure out who are you? How do I live? What's my code? What's important to me? What's not important to me? And you're sorting through all kinds of contradictions. Yeah. And, you know, by the time you get into your 50s, hopefully a lot of those have been resolved. You've come to terms and come to peace with some stuff.

And then some stuff you've just said, well, you know what? That's just who I am. I've got some flaws. I've got some strengths. And that's okay. Well, what do you think the hardest thing for you to come to peace with was? Because, I mean, i've read uh your work you know i know the the sort of struggles that you were going through you know as a young man that were ongoing right so you know what's

the difference between being at peace and and resolving a struggle and what were those struggles for you from day one i mean well when i was here in pasadena yeah and i just come from hawaii from high school uh so some of it's just the same stuff that any kid when they they're off to college you're going through right yeah time to break out you're you're breaking out you're trying to figure out how to act right yeah yeah uh how much fun should i have versus how much work? What's my work about? Because now nobody's telling you what you have to do. Did you have a vision, though?

Did you have work that you wanted to do? By my sophomore year, I did, and that's why I transferred. I mean, part of me transferring from Occidental College, which is where I was going to school when I was living in Pasadena, was after a couple of years in college, I started realizing that there were some things that were important to me. Having an impact on social justice issues, having something to say about poverty or race or things like that. What sparked that, though?

Yeah, I mean, because it seems to me like your identity, your personal identity, sort of coincided almost exactly with your political identity. Well, these are the contradictions I had to work out. So my mother was the biggest influence in my life and this wonderful woman. the biggest influence in my life and this wonderful woman.

Yeah. But I am raised without a dad, an African-American, but not grounded in a place with a lot of African-American culture. And so I'm trying to figure out, all right, I'm seen and viewed and understood as a black man in America. Right. What does that mean? Yeah. I'm absorbing all kinds of stereotypes and ideas from society.

Like Richard Pryor got the box set right there. Like Richard Pryor or shaft. Right. Right. And, and, and so I'm, I'm trying on a whole bunch of outfits.

Sure. Hats. Here, here's how I should act. You know, here, here's how it's, here's what it means to be cool.

Yeah. Here's what it means to be manly. Is that when he to be manly when you start smoking yeah exactly right me too yeah you know you start smoking you start drinking coffee sure right you got a leather jacket yeah and then you fight that for the rest of your life exactly the worst and uh and and then at a certain point um right around 20 right right around my sophomore year, I started figuring out that a lot of the ideas that I had taken on about being a rebel or being a tough guy or being cool were really not me. They were just things that I was trying on because I was insecure or I was a kid. And that's an important moment in my life, although also a scary one, because then you start realizing, well, I actually have to figure out what I really do believe and what is important and who am I really. And a lot of that revolved around issues of race and being able to say that I don't have to be one way to be both an African-American, but also somebody who affirms the white side of my family.

Right. I don't have to push back from the love and values that my mom instilled in me. Did you fight at all for a while? You know, she and I never fought. Right. Because she was as sweet as could be, and she had a good sarcastic sense of humor, and she kind of put up with my adolescent rebellion.

She's a very progressive person. She was. I always call her she was the last of the great secular humanists oh yeah she was uh you know she thought all religions had something to say and right thought all cultures were fascinating so you weren't brought up with that with the religion thing really at all no i mean we'd go to uh church for easter sometimes yeah but we had we had a shinto temple across the street from the apartment where we were living and um you know when i was in indonesia yeah that's a muslim country sure you'd have mosques and um but but

she uh instilled in me these core values that for a while I thought were corny. And then right around 20, you start realizing, you know, honesty, kindness, hard work, responsibility, looking after other people. They're actually pretty good values. They're homespun. They come out of my Kansas roots. They come out of my Kansas roots, but they're the things that ultimately ended up being most important to me and how I tried to build my life. Well, you know, I want to, you know, before, like, I feel like we jumped right in the conversation, which is good.

It was quick. And I am honored that you came, and it's an amazing privilege for me to talk to you. Listen, I'm a big fan, and I love conversations like this because if I thought to myself that when I was in college that I'd be in a garage a couple miles away from where I was living, doing an interview. As president. As president with a comedian. I think that's a pretty hard scenario to... Couldn't imagine it. It's not possible to imagine. No.

It is not. Nobody could imagine. So that's fun. Yeah. And I'm also like, you know, I pay it. I don't, you know, there was a period where I was a little more attentive politically where i you know i ran the country from my couch for a couple years a lot of people a lot of people do yeah i hear from them all the time you idiot why why aren't you doing it this way yeah yeah i heard from them this morning

i i've got i got nothing but emails from people telling me what I got to say to you. But I also know that given the events of Wednesday that you had to put a lot in check. You lost someone you knew, and I'm sorry for your loss. And it was a horrible thing. And I appreciate you making the trip. I know that that must be difficult to compartmentalize that. And this is Friday, and this is going to go up Monday. And in terms of that, not to shift the conversation too far away from the candidate. I mean, in your mind, what happens now?

Because this is going to go up Monday and this is Friday. So in relation to that event. Well, look, they have captured the suspect. We've got a legal system that's going to work, I think, the way it's supposed to. People are paying a lot of attention to it. The point I made in the immediate aftermath of the killing Was that I've done this way too often. Yes. During the course of my presidency, it feels as if a couple times a year, I end up having

to speak to the country and to speak to a particular community about a devastating loss. And the grieving that the country feels is real. The sympathy, obviously, the prioritizing, comforting the families, all that's important. But I think part of the point that I wanted to make was that it's not enough just to feel bad. There are actions that could be taken to make events like this less likely. And one of those actions we could take would be to enhance some basic common sense gun safety laws that, by the way, the majority of gun owners support. This is unique to our country. There's no other advanced nation on earth that tolerates

that tolerates multiple shootings on a regular basis and considers it normal. And to some degree, that's what's happened in this country. It's become something that we expect. The framing is it's a crazy person. It's a crazy person. You can't help it. But the truth of the matter is that this doesn't happen with this kind of frequency in other countries. When Australia had a mass killing, I think it was in Tasmania about 25 years ago, it was just so shocking to the system. The entire country said, well, we're going to completely change our gun laws.

And they did. And it hasn't happened since. Well, and also when you came into office, I mean, I know gun owners. I grew up in New Mexico. My father was a gun owner. That there was this tremendous fear like the guns are all, they're going to come for our guns. And that is a common refrain. Well, in fact, typically right after Newtown happened, for example.

Yeah. Gun sales shot up and ammunition shot up. And each time that these events occur, ironically, gun manufacturers make out like bandits, partly because of this fear that's churned up that the federal government and the black helicopters are all coming to get your guns. And part of my argument is that it is important for folks to understand how hunting and sportsmanship around firearms is really important to a lot of people. And it's part of how they grew up, part of the bonding they had with their dad. around firearms is really important to a lot of people. And it's part of how they grew up, part of the bonding they had with their dad. It evokes all kinds of memories and traditions. And I think you have to be respectful of that.

The question is just, is there a way of accommodating that legitimate set of traditions with some common sense stuff that prevents a 21 year old who is angry about something or confused about something or is racist or is deranged from going into a gun store and suddenly is packing and can do enormous harm. And that is not something that we have ever fully come to terms with. And, you know, unfortunately, the grip of the NRA on Congress is extremely strong. I don't foresee any legislative action being taken in this Congress. And I don't foresee any real action being taken until the American public feels a sufficient sense of urgency and they say to themselves, this is not normal. This is something that we can change and we're going to change it. And if you don't have that kind of public and voter pressure, then it's not going to change from the inside.

So you still have faith in the American public and American democracy and momentum? And just to be clear, there are no black helicopters, correct? There are. Oh, God. There are black helicopters, but we generally don't deploy them. Okay. Okay. All right.

don't deploy them okay okay all right we deploy them against bin laden for example but we generally don't deploy them uh on uh u.s soil right yeah but because like i asked myself and when i knew i was talking to you and i see somebody who who's symbolically you know that that horrible event wednesday where they had an agenda it was a symbolic event he knew where he was doing that he knew what it meant and now he's confessed to saying he wanted to start a race war. So in my mind, it's like, where do you find hope of that ever stopping? And it is in the people. It's in the people. And I tell you, people ask me, what's the thing you've learned most as president?

And I tell them, I don't know that this is something I learned, but it is something that has been confirmed. The American people are overwhelmingly good, decent, generous people. And I can say that because I meet a lot of people. And during this journey that you take, from the time you start running for president to the six and a half years in being president, you see folks from all walks of life. You don't just talk to your supporters. You meet people who don't like you know, in today's parlance, you know, red states and are considered very conservative. And you talk to people. And everybody that I meet believes in a lot of the same things.

They believe in some of those same virtues I was talking about that my mom taught me. they believe in some of those same virtues I was talking about that my mom taught me. They believe in honesty and family and community and looking out for one another. They very rarely think in terms of, well, that's a Republican, so I don't like that person, or that's a Democrat, I don't like that person. That's not how folks organize their lives. So that always gives me hope So that always gives me hope, and that always gives me confidence when I see how Americans interact with each other on a day-to-day basis. The problem is that there's this big gap between who we are as a people and how our politics expresses itself. And part of that has to do with gerrymandering and super PACs

and lobbyists and a media that is so splintered now that we're not in a common conversation. And the fact that if you watch Fox News, you inhabit a completely different world with different facts than if you read New York Times. You can cherry pick your information to fit your ideology. And that becomes self-reinforcing. Right. And there is a profit both for politicians and for news outlets in simplifying and polarizing. And so all those things have combined to make our political institutions detached from how people live on a day-to-day basis. And that's part of why people get so frustrated and they get so cynical. But ironically, you get a negative feedback loop, right? When

people start thinking, what's happening in Washington is so distant from how I see things that I'm not even going to bother to vote. Or even listen. Or I'm not even going to bother to listen. Right. And as a consequence then, the public withdraws and you get an even worse political gridlock and polarization. So the issue is not the American people. That's where my faith is. The question is, how do we build institutions and connections that allow the goodness, decency, common sense of ordinary folks to express itself in the decisions that are made about how the

country moves forward? Well, it's interesting that people have lost faith. And I think what you're speaking to is I had this weird experience with a guy. I did a show in Cleveland, and in the next theater over, it was Dennis Miller and O'Reilly. Right. And after the show, I was talking to a guy. He was a Vietnam vet, and we were just sitting outside. I was smoking a cigar. He was having a cigarette, and he was from the South.

And he said he just went and saw the show, but I didn't tell him who I was. I didn't discuss politics at all, I just let that go. And I knew that in that moment, if I had brought up politics, there would be nothing but tension, nothing but fighting. And I didn't want to do it, but because I didn't, I got to know who that guy was. I think some of what you're speaking to is like, I think you're right about most

Americans are decent people with these core values. But if you get two or three of them with the same ideology, you know, feeding a certain amount of hate on either side, then the individual does not come through. I think that's right. And that's why I think so many people shy away from politics because they know, look, if I'm going to my kid's soccer game and I'm just with a bunch of dads and we're talking about sports and we're talking about housing prices and we're just talking about how we're living our lives, then everybody's finding all kinds of commonalities. And yet, the minute you introduce Republican, Democrat, Obama, Bush, suddenly people start breaking apart. And the question then becomes, how do you break out of that pattern?

And that's something I've spent a lot of time with over the last six and a half years. I spent a lot of time just on policy and trying to get stuff right. You know, how do I make sure that we create more jobs? How do we make sure that, you know, when I first came in, how do I prevent another great depression? How do I make sure folks get health care? But increasingly, I've spent my time thinking about how do I try to break out of these old patterns that our politics has fallen into, which is part of the reason why I'm here. I mean, I'll be honest with you. one of the things that I've had conversations with my communications team about is, is how do we talk to folks who aren't already so dug in into a particular way of thinking about politics that we can create more space for people to have a normal, ordinary conversation?

space for people to have a normal, ordinary conversation and one in which the lines aren't as clearly drawn black and white and it's not this battle in a steel cage between one side and another. Darrell Bock Well, I became sort of disillusioned. I mean, I used to do left-wing talk radio and I realized that there was a lot of things I was naive about and about just exactly how the government worked. And then there were certain trajectories around war and around education and around the sort of corporate occupation of the American government. You know, you start to have those conversations, and it becomes very hard to deny that some of that is true. And I imagine from what I see in thinking about your presidency and thinking about you is that there is an element, and I don't know if this will be insulting to you, there's an element of the presidency that is sort of middle management.

And that it seems to me that you knew going in what you were up against because I've read your early work and you knew how it laid out. Right. You knew how capitalism worked. Right. You knew that there was no, you know, you can't go in going like, you know, we can't live in a white man's world. Those color lines had to be, you know, scrapped.

Right. But also you knew the realities of business. Right. So it seems to me that in thinking about that middle management frame, that you knew the game you had to play, but you knew that you had to, I think left to its own devices, sadly the government is only going to cede so much to poor people. Well, you know what? Here's another way of putting it.

Okay. But I think you're onto something. You know, when I ran in 2008, there were those posters out there, hope, right? Okay. And change. And those are capturing aspirations about where we should be going. A society that's more just. A society that's more equal.

A society that's more just, a society that's more equal, a society in which the dignity of every individual is respected, a society of tolerance, a society of opportunity. And the question then is how do you operationalize those abstract concepts into something really concrete? How do we get somebody a job? How do we improve a school? How do we make sure that everybody gets decent health care? As soon as you start talking about specifics, then the world's complicated. And there are choices that you have to make and it turns out that the trajectory of progress always happens and fits and starts and you've got these big legacy systems that you have to wrestle with and you have to balance uh what you want and where you're going

with what is and what has been and i you know one of the interesting things is the conversations I have with supporters who will say to me, you know, we think you're a great guy. You've done some good things, but I'm so disappointed with X because X didn't happen exactly the way I wanted it. didn't happen exactly the way I wanted it. And what I have to explain to them is that progress in a democracy is never instantaneous and it's always partial and you can't get cynical or frustrated because you didn't get all the way there immediately. Because you didn't get all the way there immediately.

So, you know, during the health care debate, there are a lot of people who just wanted a single payer plan. Right. Right. And as I said before, if I were designing a system from scratch, that would probably make more sense. We're the only country on earth that not the only country on earth, but we're one of the few countries that has this weird amalgam of private sector and Medicare and sort of a patchwork system. Hugely inefficient. We spend more than any of the other advanced countries. Our outcomes aren't necessarily better. But the notion that we were just going to scrap the existing healthcare system, which is a sixth of our economy and employs millions

of people. And that wasn't going to happen. Right. So the question is, all right, given to where we're starting now, how do we move as best we can in the right direction? Five years later, we've got millions of people who have health care that didn't have it before. We have the lowest uninsured rate that has ever been recorded. But for a lot of people, they're looking at it and saying, well, we didn't get everything we wanted.

For me, what I say to myself is, for those millions of people, many of whom write to me and say, you know, you saved my life, that's democracy working. That's government working. The same is true when it comes to how we think about the fight against terrorism. You know, we ended two wars. But I always said from the start that there really are people out there who would have no compunction about just blowing up an entire neighborhood of Americans, innocent men, women,

and children for ideological reasons. We have to deal with that. And that then means that we do have to be able to identify those networks. We do have to, when we can find those folks, try to prevent them from doing what they're doing. to build up a legal structure that is consistent with our values and due process, build up a intelligence system that is consistent with our civil liberties. And sometimes my supporters will write and say, you know, there's some stuff here that you're doing that that's just like Bush. And what I explained to them is the problems with the excesses of our counterterrorism approach after 9-11 were real. And waterboarding and torture and renditions.

We stopped. But that doesn't mean that we don't have real problems out there and that there aren't balances that we've got to strike and figure out. And it's complicated. that we don't have real problems out there, and that there aren't balances that we've got to strike and figure out. And it's complicated. And we've got to be mindful that whatever abstract views you have about drones or that you have about intelligence gathering, that if you were sitting there in the situation room, you'd realize that you've got some responsibilities and you've got some choices to make.

And it's not all clear-cut the way oftentimes it gets presented. So I guess to go to the point you were making earlier, that's where, yeah, it's like middle management. Sometimes your job is just to make stuff work. Yeah, it's like middle management. Sometimes your job is just to make stuff work. Sometimes the task of government is to make incremental improvements or try to steer the ocean liner two degrees north or south so that 10 years from now, suddenly we're in a very different place than we were, but at the time, that may not, but at the moment, people may feel like we need a 50-degree turn. We don't need a 2-degree turn.

And you say, well, if I turn 50 degrees, the whole ship turns. They weren't going to let you turn 50 degrees. And you can't turn 50 degrees. Shock to the system. And it's not just because of corporate lobbyists. It's not just because of big money. It's because societies don't turn 50 degrees. Democracies certainly don't turn 50 degrees.

And that's been true on issues of race. That's been true on issues of the environment. That's true on issues of race. That's been true on issues of the environment. That's true on issues of discrimination. As long as they're turning in the right direction and we're making progress, then government is working sort of the way it's supposed to. But it's very optimistic of you. I'm an optimistic guy. I am. No, but I mean, like, just the way you're, you know, because I don't know how you deal from day to day.

I was panicking all morning. You know, I don't imagine you were flying in here on the chopper thinking like, you know, I am nervous about Mark. No, I wasn't. Okay. Well, that's good. That would be a problem. It would be a problem. If the president was feeling stressed about coming to my garage, coming to your garage. But you deal with that stuff all the time.

I mean, like, you know, what you're saying is this incremental progress. But I mean, you had a Congress that was, you know, dead set on not giving you anything. Right. And then, you know, then it got to a point where they really, even if they wanted to work with you, they couldn't because their constituents. That's exactly right. Their constituencies all stirred up. They thought you were Satan. Right.

And so you had that obstacle. Right. And then you're coming into, you know, a country that was depleted. And I just it's fascinating to me that you were able to maintain this hope. And now, again, on Monday, when this posts, the Supreme Court is going to make a decision. Right. About your about your bill, the health care bill. I mean, that's a huge thing. This is a slightly very crazy case. Yes. Shouldn't shouldn't have been taken in my view but but it could dismantle your your your your big thing the thing that you gave everybody well well a couple of

things i'll observe number one and not to get into the weeds on this but yeah first of all i'm confident we'll win okay because the law is clearly on our side. Number two, the case at issue is not whether the entire Affordable Care Act is legal. It is a very narrow statutory interpretation about whether those states that didn't set up state exchanges, but whose people are benefiting from the subsidies under the Affordable Care Act, whether they still get those subsidies. If the Supreme Court were to decide against us, five to six million people could lose their health insurance. Well, who knows what they said.

But people in California, for example, where there's a state exchange or New York, they wouldn't lose it. All the benefits that have happened for people who already had health insurance not being discriminated against because they have a preexisting condition, making sure that women aren't having to pay more than men for insurance, those things wouldn't go away. But, look, are there frustrations in my job? Yes. On the other hand, I can say unequivocally, I can answer Ronald Reagan's question unequivocally, are you better off now than you were four years ago? And the answer is, on every economic measure, just about you are.

Right. And so when I take an unemployment rate from 10% down to 5.5%, when I drive the uninsured rate to the lowest it's ever been, when I restore people's 401ks, when I make sure that we're doubling clean energy and we are reducing our carbon footprint. And high school graduations are the highest they've ever been. And college attendance are the highest they've ever been. And civil rights elements, too. And LGBT rights have been recognized and solidified in ways that we couldn't even imagine 10 years ago. recognized and solidified in ways that we couldn't even imagine 10 years ago.

When I look at those things, I can say that in terms of not just managing the government, but moving the country forward, we've had a lot more hits than misses. And we've made a difference in people's lives. And that is ultimately what you're looking for. When you wake up every day, you say to yourself, are things a little bit better? And if you take that long view, then you're less nervous or stressed about the day-to-day ups and downs

and what's in Politico today or what are my poll numbers doing or what did such and such say about me. And you kind of just start blocking that stuff out because you're staying focused on your ultimate destination. You can just block it out, obviously. You have to. I have learned not to worry about the day-to-day and to stay focused on what I need to do for the American people long-term.

And now, look, some of it's temperament. I always say part of this is just being born in Hawaii. It's really nice. I was just there in Kauai. Yeah, you feel better. Yeah. Right. So I feel like that fortified me so that i just you know there's a

certain element of chill you've got a hawaii in the mind you got a little hawaii in the mind and uh and that's part of it yeah um but don't you get furious i mean i saw you on tv the other day and i could see the anger and you're you're not a you're not a boil over kind of guy but i could feel it yeah there are times i i will tell you, right after Sandy Hook meets Newtown, when 26-year-olds are gunned down and Congress literally does nothing, yeah, that's the closest I came to feeling disgusted. I was pretty disgusted. But that's the exception rather than the rule in the sense that on most fronts, I've been able to find ways to make progress even in the face of obstruction, even in the face of resistance,

even in the face of gridlock. So on climate change, for example, Congress has not acted. On the other hand, just through rulemaking, we've been able to double fuel efficiency standards on cars. We are right in the middle of putting together a rule to reduce carbon pollution from power plants. And we'll get that stuff done. And it would be a lot better, it'd be a lot more helpful if we had some cooperation from Congress. And if I didn't have the chairman of the Energy and Environment Committee in the Senate holding up a snowball as if that was proof that climate change wasn't happening right that would be

useful so that kind of but does does the like because you're a smart guy you're results oriented guy and in and you see yourself as a practical person which you are and that the stuff that you're talking about should make sense to everybody and that's the way you approach right these these guys who are like, no! Look, some of the mythology about me about being very professorial and removed,

that stuff is actually, I think it has to do with me not schmoozing enough in Washington because I got two kids. And it's true that I don't do the cocktail circuit and some of the back side. You don't play the game in that way. But the truth is, though, it is accurate to say that I believe in reason.

Okay. And I believe in facts. Right. And I believe in facts. And I believe in looking at something and having a debate and an argument, but trying to drive it towards some off if we cut taxes for millionaires and billionaires, I don't mind you putting that forward as an argument. But if I then present to you a set of facts that shows that that does not result in higher economic growth. in higher economic growth. But in fact, when we have a more equitable tax system, that's when everybody's benefiting and that's when we grow. And I can show you charts decade by decade of when we grew fastest and what worked and the fact that your theories generally have not worked.

My expectation is at some point, Yeah. You say, okay. Yeah. You know. That makes sense. That makes sense to me. Right. And that's where there are times where it is frustrating because the public has, look, it's hard for the public to follow this stuff.

Yeah. Not because they don't get it, but because they got their lives to lead. You know, you're working, you're trying to get your kids to school. They just want to be okay. They want things to be okay. They're not going to be able to follow the intricacies of the health care debate. So if somebody's going around saying death panels. Yeah.

It'll lock in. You know, they sort of think, well, I don't like the idea of death panels. That doesn't sound good. And so one of the challenges that I've had to adapt to, and I think this is where hopefully I've gotten better as president because, you know, you learn as you go along, is to recognize that it's not enough just to be right or to get the policy right. It's also important to be able to communicate it in a way that is digestible, easily enough for the public that you can move the needle of public opinion. digestible, easily enough for the public that you can move the needle of public opinion. And sometimes it's just a matter of you being able to get enough folks in Congress who share your views to have the votes to get stuff done. And you can talk all you want, but you're not going to change the other side's mind. And you just have to go ahead and see if

you can move forward because they are resistant to, in some cases, rational fact-based arguments. So, all right. You've gotten an amazing amount of stuff done. And in a time in the last year, you got some big stuff done where people didn't think you were going to get anything done. And now this horrible thing happens Wednesday. And, you know, you have these police actions in Baltimore and Ferguson. I mean, coming from where you came from and trying to define yourself in terms of the African-American community and in terms of racial relations, where are we with that in terms of when you came in, in your mind? Well, first of all, I always tell young people in particular, do not say that nothing's changed when it comes to race in America unless you lived through being a black man in the 1950s or 60s or 70s. It is incontrovertible that race relations have improved significantly during my lifetime and yours, and that opportunities have opened up and that attitudes have changed.

That is a fact. What is also true is that the legacy of slavery, Jim Crow, discrimination in almost every institution of our lives, that casts a long shadow. And that's still part of our DNA. That's passed on. We're not cured of it. Racism. Racism. We are not cured of it. Racism. Racism. We are not cured of.

Clearly. And it's not just a matter of it not being polite to say nigger in public. That's not the measure of whether racism still exists or not. It's not just a matter of overt discrimination. It's not just a matter of overt discrimination. Societies don't overnight completely erase everything that happened 200 to 300 years prior. And so what I tried to describe in the Selma speech that I gave commemorating the march there was, again, a notion that progress is real and we have to take hope from that progress. But what is also real is that the march isn't over and the work is not yet completed. And then our job is to try in very concrete ways to figure out what more can we do.

So let's take the example of police practices. Cops have a really tough job. And part of the reason cops have a tough job, particularly in big cities, is that there are communities that are poor, are systematically locked out of opportunity, that suffer from legacies of discrimination that have been built up over generations. And we send cops in there basically to say, keep those folks from making too much trouble. But how do we fix what you just said? Well, I'm going to get to that. So the point is, though, that we can break it out into these component parts and we can say, number one,

we can break it out into these component parts, and we can say, number one, there are specific ways that we can make police-community relations better and police more accountable. And so we put together a task force with police officers and young people, including some of the folks who led the Ferguson marches. And surprisingly, they came up with a consensus of things that could be done that would make things better. All right, so let's implement those. Now, in the meantime, what are we doing to help those lowest income communities? We know that, for example, early childhood education works. That is one way to break the legacy of racism and poverty, if a three-year-old, four-year-old kid is in an environment of love and is getting a good meal and has a teacher that's trained in early childhood development and is hearing

enough words and is being engaged enough, they can get to where a middle class kid is pretty quickly. Is that happening? It turns out it is. But the problem is that it happens spotily, right? It happens in this community or this school district or this neighborhood or this outstanding principal is making something happen or this philanthropist has decided to do something. But what hasn't happened is us making a collective commitment to do it. So the point I'm making is that when you look at how to deal with racism, how to deal with issues of some of the police shootings that have been involved,

some of the police shootings that have been involved. I'm less interested in having an ideological conversation than I am looking at what has worked in the past and applying it and scaling up. What is required is a sense on the part of all of us that what happens to those kids matters to me, even if I never meet them, because my society is going to be better off. I'm going to feel better about the America I live in. And over time, I'm confident that my children and my grandchildren are going to live a better life if those kids also have opportunity.

That's where we have to feel hopeful. Rather than just say that nothing's changed, we have to say, wow, we've actually made significant progress over the last 50 years. If we made as much progress over the next 10 years as we have over the last 50, things would be better. And that's within our grasp. It's available to us. And this is where, again, you want to get to those decent, well-meaning Americans who would agree with that, but when it gets translated into politics, it gets all confused. And trying to bridge that gap between, I think, the good impulses of the overwhelming majority of Americans

and how our politics expresses itself continues to be the biggest challenge. What do you do to have fun? I mean, I can't imagine what it's like to raise a family in the situation that you're in as president. It must feel sort of insulated. You know, the biggest fun I've had is watching my girls grow up. Yeah. And they are magnificent.

Look, hopefully every parent feels the way I do about my daughters. Yeah. But I think they are spectacular. And when Michelle and I came into office, the biggest worry we had was, is this going to be some weird thing for them and are they

going to grow up with an attitude or are they going to think that everybody eats off of China and you know it turns out that they've just become they're kind, they're thoughtful they treat everybody with respect they're kind, they're thoughtful,

they treat everybody with respect, they don't have any kind of errors. They're confident, but without being cocky. They've got great friends. They've been able to, you know, they're not stuck in the bubble the same way I am. you know they go to the mall they have sleepovers they go to prom and malia's starting to drive um you know they're they're doing great so my biggest fun has been watching them grow up now unfortunately they're now hitting the age where they still love me but they think i'm completely boring

and so they'll come in pat me on the head talk to me for 10 minutes, and then they're gone all weekend. Right. And they break my heart. And so now I've got to start thinking, well, what's, what's, what's going to replace that fun. Right. But the one thing you don't have to worry about is like, well, I hope they don't get

lost. That never happens. Right. I mean, what is true, you know, sometimes Malia, for example, as she got older, was starting to chafe a little bit about Secret Service. Uh-huh. And I had to explain to her, sweetie, let me tell you something. If you think that you'd be over at your friend's house until 1130 and then I'd be coming to pick you up, you're crazy. So the only reason you're out is because you've got a detail.

Otherwise, you'd be home because I wouldn't be chauffeuring you around. Yeah. So there's a balance of that stuff. I've been trying to work out pretty hard just to stay in shape. That's useful. But it's not, you know, I used to play basketball more, but these days I'm I've gotten to the point where it's not as much fun because I'm not as good

as I used to be and I get frustrated. You can't be, because you play for real. Yeah, I used to be, I was never great, but I was a good player and I could play seriously. And now I'm like one of these old guys who's running around. The guys I play with who are all a lot younger, they sort of pity me and sympathize with me. They tolerate me, but we all know that I'm the weak link on the court,

and I don't like being the weak link. Right. Yeah. And psychologically, in terms of where you come from and and your family yeah you know the the revelations that you grew to have about your father over time and you know your extent do you did you find yourself confronting in yourself the same challenges that your father did with you know with um stubbornness with uh you know dealing with uh you know alcohol and that kind of stuff you know i i i was i was lucky

in that sense i mean for for those who are listening who haven't read my book or something my dad was a a tragic figure in a lot of ways um a brilliant man by all accounts who sort of took a leap from a tiny village in the backwaters of Kenya to suddenly the United States getting a degree, attending Harvard. And he never managed that leap

as well as he could have. And part of the process of me writing the book was to figure out what happened to him and how did he become who he was. And he ended up becoming an alcoholic and abusive towards his several wives and to some degree a neglectful father. In some ways, because I didn't grow up with him, he was an abstraction to me. That stuff didn't seep into me.

My mother and my grandparents who did raise me fortified me although they were one thing they always did that I thought was wise was they never portrayed a a negative picture of him

they actually accentuated what was good about him rather than bad which is an interesting thing and you had to go do your own homework so I had to do my own homework. But the point is, though, that I didn't end up – It was a good myth. Yeah, it was a good myth. And I didn't internalize a bunch of negative attitudes about who he was

and thereby didn't think that that was who I had to be. So, you know, I had the adolescent rebellion screw-up period that has been well chronicled. But it turned out that a lot of his craziness, I didn't end up internalizing it. You know, one of the things that I always say is, you is, I've said this to Michelle, one of our biggest jobs as parents, because we're all a little bit crazy, is let's see if we can not pass on some of our craziness to our kids. Right. That's a challenge, right? Yeah. And let's see if we can break the cycle.

How are you crazy? Well, for example, I think that having grown up the way I did without a dad, moving around a lot, my mom sometimes gone because of the nature of her work. It was very important to me to be a good dad and part of i think the attraction to michelle originally in addition to her being really good looking and smart and tough and funny was she had this opposite experience growing up i mean it was really leave it to beaver. You know, dad, mom, brother, live in the same place for her entire childhood, family everywhere. And so she helped ground me

in a way that allowed my kids to have this base for themselves that I never had. Conversely, I think Michelle would be the first to admit that part of probably her attraction to me was that her living in the same place all her life in this very traditional sense sometimes made her less adventurous and less open to doing new things. her less adventurous and less open to doing new things and so she has seen me as a way to instill in our kids this willingness to take a flyer on something try it out sure do something new uh and uh you know so in that sense each, I think, have been really mindful about trying to make sure that whatever limitations or gaps we've got, that we're kind of having the other person help fill those gaps, at least for our children.

I know we've got to finish up here in a minute or two, but when she goes, like if Michelle says, would you stop that police? What is she talking about? Do you like it? Yeah. I mean, they're being late. Yeah. Do you isolate? For some reason, I see you as a guy that's sort of like in your head and just sort of like will just detach a little bit.

No, no, no. I'm very engaged. She will say stop that when we first started dating. I'd always give myself kind of a 15-minute leeway, right, in terms of showing up and getting to stuff. And partly because Michelle's dad had multiple sclerosis. It was really interesting. I used to say, you know,

why are you stressing me about, you know, being late? I'm just 15 minutes late, 10 minutes late. What's the big deal? And then, I don't remember how long

we were in the relationship when she described how her dad had to wake up an hour earlier than everybody else because he had multiple sclerosis just to put on his shirt and button his own shirt was a big task right and if he want if the family wanted to go see michelle's brother play basketball this is is before the ADA, the American Disabilities Act, they'd have to get there early so that her dad on crutches could hobble his way up the stairs to their seat. And that mentality of not wanting to stand out and not wanting to miss something had instilled in her. So it was a very emotional thing.

It was loaded. Right? It wasn't just about being late. It wasn't just about being late. Yeah. And so, well, you know, that's one of the beauties of marriage, right? Over time, if it works, it's because you start figuring out, you know, the fights you have are never about the fights. It's never about the thing you're fighting about. It's always about something else.

It's about a story. It's about respect. It's about recognition. Something young, too. Yeah, something deep. Yeah. Yeah, and, you know. So, okay, so I think we did good here.

I thought it was a pretty good conversation. Yeah, pretty good? What could I have done better? What did I not do? Were you expecting something a little lighter? No, no, no. It's just we sort of dove in. It didn't have that kind of nice sort of ease into it.

So suddenly we were just yacking away. That's sort of like the way I am. That's what I figured. So I went with it. I rolled with it. How do you do this? Like, you know, you're just able to – because I saw you in Manassas the day after your grandmother passed, the day before the election, and you just turned it on.

You were just doing gigs last night. You're going to Tyler Perry's and Chuck Lorre's doing the thing. You're touring, doing that part of the job. You know, the night of, you know, I'm a comic, so the night that you knew that they were going to shoot Ben Laden, you're doing comedy i was pretty funny too yeah yeah but you know is there some trick that you can share with us all of how you just sort of focus in on that is everything that immediate to you that you can compartmentalize that quickly or you just know that you have to show up and do the job yeah look the, because you're a performer, you know this is true,

and you're friends with a lot of comics. You like comedy? I love comedy. Who are your guys? Well, Pryor was an early one. Yeah. Dick Gregory when he was really on the edge. But you know what?

I love all, you know, Seinfeld's a whole another different type uh yeah lewis you know i know his buddy yours i love louis yeah yeah i i think louis terrific oh boy he just made his life no no i just made his life he he he's he's wonderful in such a self-deprecating but edgy kind of way. And basically good-hearted even when he's saying stuff that's pretty wrong. Wrong. You know? Yeah.

But there's a goodness about him that comes through. Look, I think that at the end, what all those guys understand is the more you do something and the more you practice it, at a certain point it becomes second nature. Sure. And what I've always been impressed about when I listen to comics talk about comedy is how much of it is a craft, right? And they're thinking it through, and they have a sense of when it works and when it doesn't. And then the longer you do it, the better your instincts are. Same with President. Yeah. Same with President.

And also, I guess the last thing is you lose you lose fear that's right i i was talking to somebody the other day um uh about why i actually think i'm i'm i'm a better president and would be a better candidate if I were running again than I ever have been. And it's sort of like an athlete. You might slow down a little bit. You might not jump as high as you used to. But I know what I'm doing and I'm fearless. For real. You're not pretending to be fearless. You're not pretending to be fearless. That's exactly right. And when you get to that point. Freedom. Then, you know, and also part of that fearlessness is because you've screwed up enough times. Sure.

That, you know, that. It's all happened. It's all happened. I've been through this. Right. I've screwed up. Right. I've been in the barrel, tumbling down Niagara Falls.

Yeah. And I emerged and I lived. And that's always a, that's such a liberating feeling. Falls. Yeah. And I emerged and I lived. And that's always a, that's such a liberating feeling. Absolutely. Right? It's one of the benefits of age. It almost compensates for the fact

that I can't play basketball anymore. Well, good. All right. Well, thank you. It was great to talk to you. Were we good? We're good? That was fun.

I appreciate it, Mr. President. It was great. All right, man. Okay. That happened. That, it was great. All right, man. Okay, that happened. That's it. Amazing. Squarespace has set up a special website for this episode featuring photos and other behind-the-scenes stuff at markmeetsobama.com. Squarespace.

Build it beautiful. I want to thank everyone at the White House who helped make this happen, especially Shayla Murray and Liz Allen. Also, special thanks to Steve Wilson at iTunes, Lex Friedman and everyone at Midroll, Rob Walsh at Libsyn, our web guru Martin Sellis, Dane Miller, Liz Drew, Chris Hayes, Jesse Thorne,

Colt Cabana, Ashley Barnhill, and my neighbors. Thanks to my team, Olivia Wingate, Kelly Von Valkenburg, David Martin, Frank Capello, Rob Greenwald, and Matt LeBeau. Stephan Lawrence did the artwork for this episode, Nathan Smith designed our logo, John Montagna created our theme music, and Brendan McDonald produces the show.

And I'm Mark Maron. Okay, we'll talk later. Boomer lives! And I'm Mark Maron. Okay. We'll talk later. Boomer lives!