Jerry Seinfeld gets in cars and with coffee (and comedians!) often — it is, interestingly, a recurring thing for the host of Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee. President Obama likewise proved that he’s comfortable simply being in a car with a coffee (and a comedian!) in today’s much awaited episode of the web series.
At the beginning of the episode, as Seinfeld’s approaching Obama’s oddly familiar home in a blue 1963 Corvette Stingray, the comedian notes that Obama is not a comedian — and is thus a deviation from the show’s titular standard — but also emphasizes that he’s made just enough jokes to qualify, harking back to Obama’s hilarious rebuttal to Cheney at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner earlier this year.
Seinfeld presents the car to Obama with flattery: “The coolest car, American made, for the coolest guy ever to hold this office.” As they begin to drive — a journey quickly halted by a security guard — Obama tells Seinfeld he looks a little nervous, asking whether it’s not the same as doing it with Fallon or Letterman.
Indeed it’s not: the two of them end up getting their coffee in the White House, as Obama ponders what it’d be like to not have to worry about security at all times, to be able to bump into any old Jerry in the street. “I would love to be taking a walk and then I just run into you,” he says, noting his total loss of anonymity, and how “anonymity is not something you think about as being valuable.”
“I remember not being famous. It wasn’t that great,” responds Seinfeld.
Together, they discuss Obama’s pick for the coolest president (Teddy Roosevelt), the “Night at the Museum”-ishness of sleeping at the White House, whether it’s okay for the president to wander around the White House in his underwear (“It’s not cool generally wandering around in my underwear”), and…more things about underwear (Obama is loyal to one undisclosed brand). Obama reveals that the coolest presidential honor he could receive would be “the Rushmore thing,” and that he stress eats nachos and guacamole. (This proves that he’s not just saying random things to sound relatable: Obama has, in the past, been open about his guacamole enthusiasm/purism).
Perhaps the best, most descriptive moment of the episode, however, was when Seinfeld asked Obama about golfing with Larry David, at which point the president went into gory detail about David’s lotion routine.
I love Larry. When we play golf, he’s a fair-skinned guy — he lathers himself in sunscreen and it’s dripping and it’s caked white all over and it catches parts of his ears and then there’s big globs of it.
Of course, given the nature of this and the fact that Obama’s still President, he couldn’t be too candid about any political secrets or loyalties. (There was, however, a brief aside about Obamacare.) When asked about the idiocy of the people he has to put up with, he said:
When you’re dealing with Congress, it varies. There are going to be some folks there that are foolish, just like there are in comedy.
Watch the full episode here.