Barack Obama on Jimmy Kimmel Live: 'In Kenya we drive on the other side'
‘Kenyan-born Muslim socialist president’ holds his own against comedy host but strikes serious note about ‘criminals’ who shot police in Ferguson
President Barack Obama made an appearance on the late-night comedy showJimmy Kimmel Live on Thursday, gamely subjecting himself to jokes about getting high, going gray and hailing from Kenya.
It was a long interview – the better part of 40 minutes, with three commercial breaks – and the president delivered the goods, rapping about Area 51, Hillary Clinton’s email, dentistry, midnight snacking in the White House, Kanye West and the movie Fast Times at Ridgemont High, which stars, of course, the guest who followed Obama, Penn.
“That’s a classic,” Obama told Kimmel, of the stoner-sex-classroom comedy set in San Diego. “I lived it man, I didn’t just see it.” This was literally true, in the sense that both the film and the president’s biography feature hot-boxing, the practice of getting high by filling a vehicle you are in with marijuana smoke.
The president taped the show in the afternoon before hitting a Democratic fundraiser at the Los Angeles home of a Hollywood talent agent where guests ponied up as much as $33,400 apiece for dinner.
“It is not for me,” Obama said. “We’ve got to keep folks going. There’s going to be another election.”
The appearance was not all yuks. Obama spoke for about four minutes, an eternity in TV time, about the shooting on Wednesday night of two police officers in Ferguson, Missouri. The officers were treated at a hospital and released.
“What had been happening in Ferguson was oppressive and objectionable and was worthy of protest, but there was no excuse for criminal acts,” Obama said. “And whoever fired those shots shouldn’t detract from the issue. They’re criminals, they need to be arrested.”
Kimmel, who hangs way behind Jimmy Fallon in the late-night ratings but still attracts around 2.75 million viewers a night, also let the president talk about student loans a little bit and the importance of voting – but the real business of the outing was to pry at the seams where Barack Obama the person is stitched to President Obama the officeholder.
The president was game, kicking off the appearance by participating in one of the show’s most popular recurring segments, in which celebrities read mean things written about them by strangers on Twitter.
Plenty of people write mean things about Obama on Twitter.
“Obama’s hair is looking grayer theses days,” the president read. “Can’t imagine why since he doesn’t seem to be one bit worried about all that’s going on.”
“How do you make Obama’s eyes light up?” Obama read. “You shine a flashlight in his ears.”
He laughed. “That’s pretty good,” he said.
“I have to say though, those weren’t that mean,” Obama told Kimmel once he had made his way over to the guest’s couch. “You should see what the Senate says about me.”
The crowd ate it up, rewarding every punchline with layers of applause. The president was greeted with a standing, dancing ovation as he was played in by the house band to a swinging version of the Robert Johnson song Sweet Home Chicago.
Kimmel joked about an ongoing political headache for Obama’s would-be Democratic successor, Clinton, who has been criticized for using a personal, secret email account while secretary of state.
“Do you have Hillary Clinton’s new email address?” Kimmel said.
“I can’t share it with you,” Obama cracked. “I don’t think she’d want you to have it.”
The host’s most persistent line of questioning, however, did not run to politics or to pot but to aliens. Kimmel had used an appearance by former President Bill Clinton on the show last year to try to determine whether rumors about evidence of contact with aliens being stored at a US government facility known as Area 51 are true.
“They exercise strict control over us,” Obama deadpanned. “I can’t reveal anything.”
“Clinton said there was nothing,” Kimmel said.
“That’s what we’re instructed to say,” Obama said.
Kimmel introduced the president as “the first Kenyan-born Muslim socialist ever elected to run this country”, and Obama took him up on the joke during a riff about daily life around the White House, from the mechanics of a midnight snack (there’s a stocked refrigerator) to seeing the dentist (there’s a facility in the basement) to driving.
“I cannot drive,” said Obama.
“Is that because you don’t have a birth certificate?” asked Kimmel.
“In Kenya we drive on the other side of the road,” said Obama. At least part of that was true; Kenya is a former British colony.
An anagram of Kenya is Kanye, whom Obama also spoke about. Kimmel said Kanye West had told him, Kimmel, that Obama calls him, Kanye, at home.
“I’ve met Kanye twice,” said Obama. “Look, I love his music, he’s incredibly creative. I don’t think I’ve got his home number.”
Compared with the president, Penn, who was appearing to promote a new movie, seemed self-serious, tired, literal and slow.
Kimmel asked him whether he had chatted with the president. Penn’s reply advertised his familiarity with the leader of the free world. “Me and Barry were talking backstage,” he said.
It was unclear whether he was invited to dinner.
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