This month, Jerry Seinfeld helped President Obama break a rule he has with the Secret Service.
The comedian let the president drive.
In the Dec. 30 season-seven premiere of Seinfeld’s Web series Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee, Obama will be alongside the 61-year-old comedian, as the two sip coffee and ride around in a 1963 Corvette. (They took turns circling the White House driveway on the South Lawn. Episodes typically entail comedians conversing and driving around in public, but such a scenario would have been a total nightmare for the Secret Service.)
The president shot the segment on Dec. 7, the day after his evening address to the nation on the San Bernardino massacre and the ISIS threat.
“‘How did I get here?’ ‘Is this really happening?’ The president’s humor and generosity are the only reasons this was even possible,” Seinfeld said in a statement, calling Obama, “so easy and fun” to be around.
“It is fair to say [Obama] is a fan of Seinfeld and we thought this would be a good opportunity for people to hear about the lighter side of life inside the White House,” a White House spokesman told The Daily Beast.
Below is the trailer for the new season, which concludes with Seinfeld driving up to the White House and “calling” POTUS:
Oddly enough, they can thank Donald Trump for bringing them together.
In June 2010, Seinfeld—a small-time Democratic donor—performed a brief set in the White House’s East Room during a concert honoring Paul McCartney.
The two enjoyed mutual admiration for each other, but it wasn’t until the following year that Seinfeld chose to publicly stick up for the president. In 2011, current Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump was on a bit of a birther kick. The Donald even claimed he sent a team of investigators to Hawaii to get to the bottom of the Obama birth certificate drama. (Spoiler: Obama turned out to be an American.)
Seinfeld was not amused by the racist-conspiracy-theorizing, so in April 2011 he pulled out of a scheduled gig at a charity benefit hosted by Trump’s son.
Seinfeld’s manager told CNN at the time that the comedian felt that “this kind of demagoguery has no place in public discourse,” and that he would make a charitable contribution in lieu of performing.
Trump retaliated with a spiteful, very Trump-y letter to Seinfeld.
“I just learned you canceled a show for my son’s charity, The Eric Trump Foundation, which benefits the St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital because of the fact that you think I am being very aggressive with respect to President Obama, who is doing an absolutely terrible job as our leader—just look at Libya, our economy, gas, food, and clothing prices and maybe you will understand what is going on!” Trump wrote.
“What I do feel badly about is that I agreed to do, and did, your failed show, The Marriage Ref, even though I thought it was absolutely terrible,” he continued. “Despite its poor ratings, I didn’t cancel on you like you canceled on my son and St. Jude. I only wish I did.”
Trump previously called the NBC series “funny” and educational, not terrible.
The Trump campaign did not respond to a request for comment on whether or not The Donald would ever consider doing Seinfeld’s new, non-failing show.
The White House has booked President Obama on plenty of nontraditional media hits before. Obama’s done a goofy BuzzFeed video. He’s been interviewed by YouTube stars. He appeared on Funny or Die in order to increase Obamacare enrollment. And more recently, he was on Running Wild with Bear Grylls, where he refused to drink his own pee.
