Aziz Ansari found out about President Barack Obama’s passion for golf the hard way.
When the comedian came to Washington to perform at the Verizon Center on Sept. 27, he was invited to take a tour of the White House. According to his account on Howard Stern’s radio show earlier this week, he was told that the president was a big fan and would try to find time between his national security meetings to come out and see him.
Ansari didn’t get to meet the president that day — but not because the commander in chief was toiling away with his national security team trying to figure out a way to defeat the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria or stop Iran’s nuclear program.
“Two weekends ago I went to do a show in D.C.,” Ansari explained to Stern on Oct. 6. “I was doing the Verizon Center. I was very excited. And we got an email saying, like, ‘hey, you know, do you want to come do a tour of the White House. Like, the POTUS is a big fan. Would love to say hi if he’s around.’ And so I was like, ‘yea, I’ll go do a tour. It would be great to say, like, hi to him again.’”
“And so I go and, you know, dress up in my suit and stuff,” he continued. “And the guy showing us a round – nicest guy – is like, ‘look, we are going to try to get you in to see the president. He has got a lot of meetings today. Like, he’s got a lot of national security stuff. But, you know, we are going to try to do it.’ I’m like, ‘aright great. Totally fine.’ So we are like walking around. We are just trying to stay there for a long time to increase our odds of like actually [meeting Obama].”
But unfortunately for Ansari, the president had urgent matters to attend to.
“So we are walking around and just waiting and waiting,” Ansari explained. “And then I, like, hear another Secret Service guy, like, walk by and was like, ‘alright, let’s do it. POTUS wants to play golf.’”
“And I was like, ‘WHAT? He’s going to go play golf? I thought he was a big fan; he wanted to say hi to me?'” Ansari continued. “‘There’s no national security meeting. He’s going to play golf.’”
“So I got dissed by Obama,” Ansari concluded.
WATCH: Starting at 39:30