Barack Obama returns to ‘WTF with Marc Maron’ for the emotional final episode of the groundbreaking 16-year podcast.
After 16 years, nearly 1,700 episodes, and countless deeply personal conversations, Marc Maron has officially closed the book on his beloved podcast WTF with Marc Maron.
Fittingly, his final guest was former President Barack Obama — the same figure who helped lift the show into the cultural spotlight a decade earlier. For the finale, the setting was flipped from Maron’s Los Angeles garage to Obama’s Washington office, creating a full-circle moment listeners had long hoped for.
The tone of the episode was reflective and warm. Early on, Obama asked Maron how he felt about ending something so central to his life and career. Maron admitted to a mix of relief and anxiety — ready for a break but unsure what comes next.
Obama’s measured advice was simple: “You’ve still got a couple of chapters left. Don’t rush into what’s next. Take a beat. Take some satisfaction looking backwards.” Their conversation ranged from personal transition to the state of the world, and Obama praised Maron’s authenticity, saying a “core decency” in his conversations explained the show’s deep appeal. Maron closed with a soft tribute to his late cats: “Cat angels everywhere.”
Since its 2009 start in a modest garage nicknamed the “Cat Ranch,” WTF grew from a private place for Maron to work through his struggles with fellow comedians into a proving ground for long-form, confessional interviews — and it helped reshape podcasting itself.
The show’s emotional honesty and loose format attracted high-profile guests across music, film and politics, from Robin Williams to Paul McCartney, proving that podcasts could carry cultural weight comparable to traditional media. Obama’s original 2015 appearance — recorded in Maron’s garage while he was still president — is often cited as a turning point that signaled podcasts had arrived.
In a reflection published alongside the finale, Obama noted that their conversations had touched on “conviction, decency in an age of division, and the true story of America,” and he praised Maron’s legacy of deep conversation and human connection.
Maron and longtime producer Brendan McDonald announced in June that the show would end, saying Maron was tired but satisfied with what they’d built.
With Obama’s return, Maron’s final episode — No. 1,686 — felt less like a sudden stop and more like a careful, full-circle goodbye: a last, meaningful conversation before he officially “locked the gates.”
