President Obama says he’s been behind the wheel more recently than folks might think — revealing he took a car for a spin around the White House grounds.
In a Wednesday appearance on “The Tonight Show,” Obama told host Jay Leno he was about to disclose a secret that “has not been made public.”
The president said that a friend of his drove onto the South Lawn at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. in a Chevy Volt and urged Obama to get in the driver’s seat. The commander in chief says he hopped in and did a few laps around the lawn before Secret Service barked out, "Under no circumstances is he to leave the gate.”
Obama noted with a laugh, “Yeah, shut it down completely. That was my big joy ride — three times around the South Lawn driveway. It was wild.”
In the wide-ranging late-night interview, Obama
poked fun at Donald Trump. The mogul had announced earlier on Wednesday that he would donate $5 million to charity if the president released his school transcripts.
When asked by Leno about the root of any animosity, Obama made light of Trump’s claims last year that the president might not have been born in the United States.
“This all dates back to when we were growing up together in Kenya. We had constant run-ins on the soccer field. You know, he wasn’t very good and resented it. When we finally moved to America, I thought it’d be over,” Obama said with a sly smile.
The West Wing resident said there would be at least one change at the White House this year on Halloween. Rather than giving out fruit to trick-or-treaters, as he and Michelle Obama did last year, Obama joked, “It s an election year, so candy for everybody.”
He added, while motioning with his arms, “If anybody comes from Ohio to the White House, they will get a Hershey bar about this big. It’ll be huge!”
