Obama Jokes About Relationship with Romney: ‘We’re Not Friends’
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Kevin Winter/NBCUniversal/Getty Images(CHAPEL HILL, N.C.) — With the general election now well underway, President Obama joked on Tuesday that he and presumptive GOP nominee Mitt Romney don’t have much of a close personal relationship.
“I’ve met him, uh, but we’re not friends,” the president told NBC’s Jimmy Fallon, getting a big laugh from the late night crowd. “He seems like somebody who cares deeply about his family. His wife is lovely.”
Although the election is over six months away, the president seemed to admit the “getting to know you” phase is over. Asked about possible attack ads on the horizon, he chuckled, “it’s not the best introduction.”
“Usually… you end up meeting him or her during debates,” Obama said of getting to know his political rivals. “When you’re in a primary, then you typically know the folks you’re running against. John McCain I knew because we served in the Senate together. Mr. Romney was a governor so I didn’t have the occasion to get to know him very well.”
The president’s appearance on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, which was taped Tuesday afternoon at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, was part of his ongoing tour to push for low student interest rates.
Obama conveyed his message, which he is also pitching in Colorado and Iowa, to the late night audience in a unique form: he slow jammed.
The president joined Fallon in the popular segment “Slow Jam The News.” With The Roots laying the beat behind him, Obama looked into the camera and made his sales pitch, wooing young voters as he called for Congress to extend low interest rates on student loans.
“Now is not the time to make school more expensive for our young people,” Obama said as the camera pulled out to show Fallon. “Ohhh yeah,” the comedian crooned. “You should listen to the president or as I like to call him ‘the Preezy of the United Steezy.’”
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