Jimmy Fallon and President Obama slow jam the news

President Obama has given a lot of major speeches. But never before has he punctuated one by dropping the microphone after, like he did Tuesday night on "Late Night with Jimmy Fallon" .

It's the rhetorical equivalent of the end zone dance in the NFL, and came after Obama joined the NBC host in "slow-jamming" the news. And it was just one of the standout moments from the president's latest foray into late night television.


Obama's appearance was part of his weeklong messaging effort to press Congress to extend lower interest rates for some student loan programs. And there was some serious talk about the policy push, but more than a few lighter moments. Perhaps a warm-up for his routine at this Saturday's annual White House Correspondents Assn. dinner?


What does Bobo have to say? I woke up wondering what Bobo was thinking,” The president says wryly.


“Due to economic pressures the influence on voters could likely see…oh forget it. Are you going to legalize weed or what?”


Obama laughs. “I figured that’s what Bobo was going to ask,” he says, adding, “We’re not going to be legalizing ‘weed, or what’ anytime soon. But what we are trying to do is make sure that when it comes to drugs we are not just thinking about law enforcement, we’re also thinking about treating it as a public health problem.”


Fallon wonders how Obama’s doing with the whole “stop smoking” thing and then tries to use that to segue into some gag about Colombia and Secret Service scandal and nicotine patches but made a botch of it with all the giggles and gushing. Honestly, we’ve seen more poised tweener girls around Justin Bieber.


“If Mitt Romney was in the room right now, what would you say to him?” Fallon asks, reading another Twitter question.


“I’d say, ‘Hey, Mitt!’” Obama says


Obama’s an old hand at late night TV, though Tuesday’s appearance is his first on Fallon’s show.


In October of 2011, he visited Fallon’s lead-in, Jay Leno, who asked if he had been watching the GOP debates.


“I’m going to wait until everybody is voted off the island…Once they narrow it down to one or two, I’ll start paying attention,” he said, clearly knowing who was his audience.


Wild applause, approving of the “Survivor” reference.


And, in October of 2010, the president visited Jon Stewart’s “The Daily Show” and clocked that show’s third biggest audience ever — behind only two episodes, in 2008, when Stewart had interviewed candidate Barack Obama, and the time he interviewed the future first lady Michelle Obama.

“Late Night With Jimmy Fallon” is, of course, well-known in political circles as that late night show on which The Roots played Fishbone’s tune “Lyin’ A—B----while then GOP presidential candidate Michele Bachmann walked out on stage, back in November of ’11.


Musical editorializing is a Roots signature gag on the show. In the past, Roots had played a Milli Vanilli tune by way of introducing Ashlee Simpson — she of the lip-syncing “Saturday Night Live” hoedown debacle, broke into E.U.’s “Da Butt” to welcome Serena Williams, and performed Beck’s “Loser” to herald the entrance of “Speidi” on the show.