Jimmy Kimmel scored President Obama’s first public comments about the shooting of two police officers inFerguson; he said “there was no excuse for criminal acts.” “Obviously,” Obama said tonight on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, “we don’t yet know what happened. Our thoughts and prayers are with the officers and their families, and thankfully, as you said, they’re going to be okay… What was beautiful about Selma was reminding ourselves that real social change in this country so often has happened because ordinary people are willing in a nonviolent fashion to make their voices heard.”
Obama was, among other things, responding to comments made by former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who suggested this morning in a radio interview Obama bore some responsibility for the shooting of two Ferguson police officers last night, according to New York Daily News. “It all starts at the top. It’s the tone that’s set by the president,” Giuliani said, explaining Obama ignores an “enormous amount of crime” committed by African-Americans. “It is the obligation of the President to explain… that our police are the best in the world.”
Tonight, Obama told Kimmel, “There’s no excuse for criminal acts. Whoever fired those shots shouldn’t detract from the issue. They’re criminals. They need to be arrested. And then what we need to do is make sure that like-minded, good-spirited people on both sides, law-enforcement who have a terrifically tough job, and people who understand they don’t want to be stopped and harassed because of their race, that we’re able to work together to try and come up with some good answers.”
“What we have to make sure of is that the folks who disregard and disrespect the other side, people who resort to violence, that they’re marginalized.”
“They set us all back,” Kimmel chimed in.
“But they’re not the majority,” Obama responded. “And in the same way that you can’t generalize about police officers who do an extraordinarily tough job, overwhelmingly, they do it professionally, you can’t generalize about protesters who it turns out had some very legitimate grievances. The Justice Department report showed that they were being stopped, African Americans were being stopped disproportionately, mainly so the city could raise money, even though these were unjust.”
Kimmel jumped in to complain about the parking tickets he gets in Los Angeles. “I get crazy when I get parking tickets I feel are unjust,” he said. “My wheels are not turned properly, and I feel like they’re just trying to make money off of me. They’re not obeying the spirit of the law.”
“What was happening in Ferguson,” Obama continued, deftly sidestepping Kimmel and his parking tickets, as well as the urge to clunk the late-night host on the head with a blunt object, “was you had city government telling the Police Department: ‘Stop more people. We need to raise more money.’ Folks would get stopped. They’d get tickets. Then, they’d have to wait in line to pay it, take a day off work. Folks would lose their jobs. In some cases, they were thrown in jail because they didn’t have enough money for the fines. And then, they’d get fined for that. So there was a whole structure there, according to the Justice Department report, that indicated both racism and just a disregard for what law enforcement’s supposed to do.”
Obama also read mean tweets – “How do you get Obama’s eyes to light up? Shine a flashlight in his ears”, and such:
“You should see what the Senate says about me,” Obama joked later. He said he does not text, or tweet, does use email – declined to give Hillary Clinton’s email to Kimmel – and is not allowed to have a phone with a recorder in it for security reasons.
Kimmel asked Obama if he would do away with Daylight Savings Time. “See, this is a California thing,” Obama responded. “In the East Coast you don’t mind losing that hour, because it’s a signal that spring is here.”
Kimmel introduced Obama as “the first Kenyan-born Muslim socialist to be elected president.” Also, he tried a couple birth-certificate gags. Kimmel, for instance, asked Obama if he could drive.
“I can’t drive.” said the president. “I mean I can but –”
“Is that because you don’t have a birth certificate?” Kimmel asked.
“In Kenya, we drive on the other side of the street,” Obama responded.
It marked first time the commander in chief has sat down with ABC’s late-night host in person. Obama did Jimmy Kimmel Live! via satellite back in June 2008, when he was a mere senator from Illinois looking to become the leader of the free world.
When tonight’s taping was done, Obama slipped out a back door and his motorcade started rolling at 6:26 PM toward Westside fundraiser. Heading up past Hollywood Bowl, and Highland is clear of traffic. Obama is set to be the headliner at a $33,400 per couple DNC event at ICM Partners co-founder Chris Silbermann and his wife Julia Franz’s house.
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