Marc Maron continued the press rounds on Monday to promote his new HBO stand-up special, “Panicked,” and the final stretch of his beloved “WTF” podcast later this fall. Sitting with Will Arnett, Jason Bateman and Sean Hayes on this week’s “Smartless,” the podcast pioneer shared some behind-the-scenes details about his historic 2015 interview with then-President Barack Obama, memorably held in the confines of his Highland Park garage.
Reflecting on the politician’s use of the N-word during the interview while talking about how racism in the United States is alive and well, Maron said that it seemed Obama “very deliberately” stirred up a media firestorm by speaking so uncensored on the pod and remembered how the international press responded to his frankness.
More from TheWrap
“It was intense, and I just tried to, you know, we had to cover some politics up front because there were things unfolding, but then it was a fairly standard ‘WTF’ interview,” Maron said on “Smartless.” “And the funniest part about it was when he sat down, you know, I said, ‘So, you nervous?’ And he said something like, ‘If I was nervous about this, we’d all be in trouble.’”
When Bateman suggested Obama appeared “forthcoming” during the sit-down, Maron admitted he was “forthcoming enough” but can get “wonky” if the conversation skews too political.
“He’s a genuine person. What he was was very disarming and very candid-seeming and willing and thoughtful,” the host said. “But what was interesting was it was better to do a personal interview with him, because he is kinda wonky, and if you get into politics it can get a little long and we only had an hour. So we were able to kind of do it.”
Maron then zeroed in on the headline-making quote from the interview that had the president saying the N-word live on the mic.
“And then for some reason he chose, I’m sure very deliberately, to say the N-word on my show,” he said. “He was like, you know, ‘Racism isn’t over just because you can’t say the N-word,’ and he said it, so that got, you know, a flurry of international news. So I had to deal with news crews in front of my house. But my producer was very calculating in terms of the press we did — he’s a very smart guy. We didn’t engage with any of them. We just did Chris Hayes and Terry Gross and that was it.”
The comedian then joked: “And I don’t hear from Obama at all, he’s got my number, but I feel weird texting him.”
Obama’s full quote from June 2015 went as followed: “Racism, we are not cured of it. And it’s not just a matter of it not being polite to say n—-r in public. That’s not the measure of whether racism still exists or not. It’s not just a matter of overt discrimination. Societies don’t, overnight, completely erase everything that happened 200 to 300 years prior. 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.”
Maron defended the president’s use of the word back in 2015, telling CBS, “As a comic, it wasn’t that jarring to me. But to frame it correctly, he said the n-word to talk about using the n-word and what that implicates. It was a broader statement about racism.”
The original “WTF” promotion to the interview highlighted the hour-long episode as a “conversation about college, fitting in, race relations, gun violence, changing the status quo, disappointing your fans, comedians, fatherhood and overcoming fear.”
Listen to Maron’s full “Smartless” interview in the embed below, and you can revisit his 2015 interview with Obama here.
The post Marc Maron Believes Obama ‘Very Deliberately’ Decided to Say the N-Word on His 2015 Episode of ‘WTF’ appeared first on TheWrap.
