Goodbye, David Letterman: Obama
Washington, May 5: No stranger to late night American TV, President Barack Obama bid farewell Monday to David Letterman, a retiring comic heavyweight beloved by US night owls.
Mr Obama, himself finishing his second and final term in office, addressed the recent riots in Baltimore, a Pacific trade pact he is trying to push through Congress and thoughts on his post- presidential future in his eighth and final interview with CBS’s Mr Letterman on the Late Show.
Mr Letterman, admitting to jitters over interviewing the US President, said there are days when he looks at his schedule after he wakes up and thinks, “Oh, God.”
Mr Obama joked: “Are you saying that is how you felt this morning? This interview isn’t starting well.”
Just days after his wife Michelle appeared on the same show as Mr Letterman prepares to retire late in May after 33 years on the air, Mr Obama both sparred playfully and talked serious policy stuff in the roughly hour- long chat.
“First of all, I know you like Michelle a bit more than me,” Mr Obama said of his wife, who has appeared on the Letterman show four or five times, according to Mr Letterman.
Mr Letterman, 68, noted that on that show the First Lady was accompanied by a Marine Corps band led by “a guy in a huge bearskin hat”. Mr Obama: “You were really paying attention. That’s good.” He talked about the work his wife is doing to help US veterans returning from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.