Former president Barak Obama recently appeared on comedian Marc Maron’s final episode of his “WTF” podcast, where he offered some candid thoughts about the state of the Democrat party. One thing he noted was the party needed to stop being blind to its own problems. “You can’t constantly lecture people without acknowledging that you’ve got some blind spots, too, and that life’s messy,” he said. In his own stand up, Maron had said that liberals had “annoyed the average American into fascism” by electing Trump.

Obama asserted that Democrats could stick to core principles but needed to be more open on the non-essentials. “The vulnerability, I think, comes in saying … ‘I’ve got some core convictions; I’ve got 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,’” he said. He compared liberals to the “Moral Majority movement” of the right, stating both sides had adopted a “holier-than-thou superiority.” “You can’t just be a scold all the time,” he warned. The Moral Majority was a movement in 1979 by Republicans and Christians. It was originally headed by Jerry Fallwell, Sr. and Paul Weyrich, who co-founded The Heritage Foundation and focused on bringing Christian principles into the public square.

The former president offered the example of trans issues, which Americans have been turning more and more against. He encouraged Democrats to avoid name-calling when talking about such a hot topic. “If I talked about trans issues, I wasn’t talking down to people and saying, ‘Oh, you’re a bigot.’ I’d say, ‘You know, it’s tough enough being a teenager. Let’s treat all kids decently. Why would we want to see kids bullied?” he said. While discussing the need to speak more with people who had opposing viewpoints, Obama didn’t hold back taking shots at President Trump. He stated that Trump’s recent moves to deploy National Guard troops to Chicago violated the Posse Comitatus Act, which is supposed to limit federal soldiers from stepping into state enforcement. “That is a genuine effort to weaken how we have understood democracy,” he said, calling it “inherently corrupting.”

Critics of the interview were quick to imply that both Trump and Maron, who suggested that popular podcaster Theo Von would invite Adolf Hitler on his show, were hypocrites. “Obama deported more than Trump. He’s now worth $70M,” wrote one user on X. “He’s also responsible for more deaths around the world than Trump. Funny to watch Maron do this after he made fun of Theo. And Obama saying this after all he’s been doing is grabbing cheddah and hanging with Billies on yachts.”