Much like the president’s Letterman appearance last month, in which he responded to Mitt Romney’s “47 percent” remarks for the first time, Obama’s guest spot on Thursday’s Daily Show was mostly serious and focused heavily on questions about his administration’s response to the attack in Benghazi. Jon Stewart raised the issue by pointing to Mitt Romney’s foiled gotcha moment during the debate, noting that Candy Crowley ultimately said he was right that there was confusion from the administration about what exactly happened. “We weren’t confused about the fact that four Americans had been killed,” Obama replied. “I wasn’t confused about the fact that we needed to ramp up diplomatic security around the world right after it happened. I wasn’t confused about the fact that we had to investigate exactly what happened so it gets fixed. And I wasn’t confused about the fact that we’re going to hunt down whoever did it and bring them to justice.”
Obama went on to reiterate a point he made during the debate, saying that after an attack, information starts trickling in and officials have to try to make sense of it. “We’re still in that process now,” said Obama, adding, “Every piece of information that we get, as we got it, we laid it out for the American people. And the picture eventually gets fully filled in and we know exactly what happened and then we know how — we make sure we prevent it in the future.”
Stewart pressed Obama on the apparent miscommunication between the White House and the State Department, which the president brushed aside. “Even you would admit it was not the optimal response, at least to the American people as far as us all being on the same page,” said Stewart. “If four Americans get killed, it’s not optimal,” Obama answered. “And we’re going to fix it, all of it. And what happens during the course of a presidency, you know the government is a big operation at any given time, something screws up and you make sure you find out what’s broken and you fix it.”
While they also covered how President Obama has “gone after Al Qaeda and its leadership” and still wants to close Guantanamo, they did remember that it’s ostensibly a comedy show. Obama managed to work in a 50 Shades of Grey reference, and Stewart inquired about Joe Biden’s habit of showing up to meetings in a wet bathing suit. “We had to stop that,” said Obama, adding, “I gotta say, though, he looks pretty good.”
