After DWI, Bruce Springsteen Launches Podcast With Obama

Monday marked the release of the first episodes of Bruce Springsteen and former President Barack Obama’s new podcast, “Renegades: Born in the USA,” just a few months after Springsteen’s DWI arrest.

Though his arrest was first reported in February, the singer was arrested in November for drinking and driving and is to appear in court soon for his crime. Dan Fierman, the head of Higher Ground Audio, stated that this didn’t interfere with the release of the podcast.

“Renegades” is set to release six episodes more episodes, with one dropping every week, and each will cover different topics ranging from race, fatherhood and society today, according to the New York Times. The episodes were recorded between the months of July to December of 2020.

The two met while Obama was on his 2008 campaign trail and have the same liberal beliefs when it comes to politics.

“In our own ways, Bruce and I have been on parallel journeys,” Obama says in the first episode.

“We still share a fundamental belief in the American ideal. Not as an airbrushed, cheap fiction or an act of nostalgia that ignores all the ways that we’ve fallen short of that ideal. But as a compass for the hard work that lies before each of us as citizens,” he continued.

While the two do talk about the divisions in society today, they stay away from politics itself and focus on personal stories. Obama asks questions like, "How did we get here? How could we find our way back to a more unifying American story?”

Higher Ground, which is Barack and Michelle Obama’s production company, is producing this Spotify original and the first two episodes are now available on the platform.