Former President Barack Obama criticized President Donald Trump’s approach to urban crime during a podcast interview with comedian Marc Maron, saying recent actions by the administration reflect “not our idea of America.”
Speaking on Maron’s podcast, Obama said, “We don’t want masked folks with rifles and machine guns patrolling our streets. We want cops on the beat who know the neighborhood and the kids around, and that’s how we keep the peace around here.”
He also warned against what he described as politicization within the justice system. “We don’t want kangaroo courts and trumped-up charges. That’s what happens in other places that we used to scold for doing that,” Obama said. “We want our court system and our Justice Department and our prosecutors and our FBI to be just playing things straight and looking at the facts and not meddling in politics the way we’ve seen lately.”
Obama argued that long-standing legal norms and guardrails have been eroded in recent months. “We have blown through, just in the last six months, a whole range of not simply assumptions, but rules and laws and practices that were put in place to ensure that nobody is above the law and that we don’t use the federal government to simply reward our friends and punish our enemies,” he said.
He compared the current moment to prior periods of political tension in American history, including the McCarthy era, and said public engagement is necessary.
“What’s required in these situations is a few folks standing up and giving courage to other folks,” Obama said. “And then more people stand up and kind of go, yeah, no, that’s not who we are.”
Obama encouraged individuals and institutions to push back against what he sees as overreach. “If enough people start not being in a fetal position, but also not being just not worrying about it and detached from it, being vigilant, and also saying, you know what – yeah, we can stand up to this,” he said.
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He suggested that law firms, universities and businesses should be willing to endure financial or political pressure rather than compromise core principles.
“If you’re a law firm, you saying we’re going to represent who we want, and we’re going to stand up for what we think is our core mission of upholding the law, and maybe we’ll lose some business for that, but that’s what we believe, that’s what’s needed,” Obama said.
He added that universities should protect “basic academic independence” even if it means losing federal grant money.
Obama also addressed the impact of online criticism and harassment on public figures. Responding to Maron’s comment that “sometimes you fear for your life,” Obama acknowledged the pressures of doxxing and hostile online attacks but said the current environment does not compare to historic struggles for civil rights.
“We’re not at the stage where you have to be like Nelson Mandela and be in a 10×12 jail cell for 27 years and break rocks,” he said. “Right now, there’s just a little discomfort.”
The former president argued that political convictions are meaningful only when they come at a cost. “If convictions don’t cost anything, then they’re really just kind of fashion. They’re not really convictions,” Obama said.
He added that his generation had grown accustomed to steady social progress and had not often faced serious tests of those beliefs.
The White House has defended its crime enforcement policies as necessary to restore order in major cities and ensure public safety, particularly amid rising concerns about violent crime and unrest in some urban areas.
The administration has also rejected accusations that federal law enforcement actions are politically motivated.
Obama’s remarks come as national debate continues over the balance between aggressive federal enforcement and concerns about civil liberties, prosecutorial independence and the role of the Justice Department in politically sensitive cases.