Name: Jon Favreau's INSANE Obama Story
Uploaded: 2026-01-26T14:01:08.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Jon Favreau's INSANE Obama Story' from TAFS Clips on Comedy Buff. Published 2026-01-26. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Jon Favreau's INSANE Obama Story' from TAFS Clips on Comedy Buff. Published 2026-01-26. Transcript available.

Do you? We don't. I don't know how to fix a car. No. We know how to write
speeches. Phenomenal
speech. Yeah. So he's like, my boy's a speech boy. My boy's, yeah. Yeah, yeah.
He's like,
he wanted you to play football and you're like, I gotta write. Never even
pushed me for that.
Did you grow up watching game tape of speeches? No. No. No. I didn't grow up in
a, like,
my parents liked to talk politics. They weren't, I wouldn't say they were
political,
but they didn't like to talk politics. And I remember, I do remember, like,
watching the 92
presidential debates with my dad. That was, like, my, one of my earliest
political memories. Yeah.
I remember my parents being so excited because he was a boomer. Yeah. And the
song was Fleetwood Mac.
Yeah. That was a big. They were like, it's one of us. And I remember, actually,
I remember the 88
campaign because Mike Dukakis. The helmet. The Democratic nominee. And my
mother's Greek
and her maiden name is Demarcus. And, and he was from Lowell. And my mother's
from, like, the town,
like, Woburn, which is right near Lowell in Massachusetts. And so, like, the
fact that he
was running for president was, like, the biggest deal ever. Really? Oh, yeah.
It was like a Greek. Yeah. Why would the Democrats run a Greek?
What are they going to run? From Massachusetts. They're going to run Stav next?
What do they do? Wait. Yeah. It's so funny that a picture of a helmet. I mean,
he really did look like a bitch ass in that picture. Yeah. But that's short,
too. That's
the kind of thing that can sway an election. It feels like nowadays, like, we
forgot Trump
got shot two days later. Like, yeah. And then Joe Biden dropped out two days
later. Yeah.
Those are the good days. Those are crazy summer. Yeah. It sucks that Biden did,
like, his first
funny thing before he dropped out. Which was? He's like, when he's, like, he
was with Zelensky.
And he was like, ladies and gentlemen, President Putin.
It was like he was, like, doing the music guest on SNL.
Ladies and gentlemen, President Putin.
I remember that press conference. That was a rough one.
Who was forcing him to do that? The wife?
No, him. No, it was the wife.
I think she was encouraging.
Jill was like, go out there.
I think they were like, you do you. Like, we're going to be with you no matter
what you
want to do. And it was like, you want some people when you're President of the
United
States around you who will tell you difficult things that you don't want to
hear.
I thought you were going to say laugh at all your jokes. Did Obama ever tell
just a shit
joke and you fake laughed? You definitely did.
Probably.
Yeah, yeah. It's the president.
Yeah. I would definitely. I am an easy laugh anyway, but yeah, I'm sure I fake
laughed at
some of his jokes. And you're like, come on, Mr. President.
That's not good.
That's, that's sexist. You can't say that about women.
I shouldn't have shown you Entourage.
Do you remember your boss? He said that his favorite show was Entourage.
Did he say that?
Yeah, it's so sick.
So sick. That's so us.
That's so us.
That's so us, dude.
I mean, you were 28 years old in the West Wing of the White House.
You watched the show before?
I did.
So sick.
I was in college.
Yeah, so I watched it then.
So what's your, you think you're Sam?
Yeah.
But you want to be Josh.
Do I?
Anti-Semite. He's the anti-Semite.
That's what it is.
You want to be Toby, the coolest guy on the show.
Was there a Toby in the squad with you guys?
I see, Toby was communications director.
Yeah, but he was a little dark.
Yeah.
I don't know.
All the characters were just an amalgam of people in the White House.
So it's like, Toby was like David Axarod, little Toby, you know?
Yeah.
But also like the communications director.
I guess Pfeiffer could have been a little tough.
So you were like a Donna, you're saying?
I was a Donna.
You were a Donna.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
Did you have, you were the boss of people older than you at 28?
Let's see.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Couple.
We were pretty young, though, as a group, the speechwriters.
Really?
Yeah, so I think most of them were my age or younger, but like Ben Rhodes is a
couple
years older than me.
No one's too older, too much older than me.
Was there any Harvard Lampoon guys?
No, we didn't have any Harvard Lampoon guys.
That's actually a serious question that I said as a joke, but it actually is
plausible.
Yeah.
They're everywhere.
Yeah, you always run into a fucking Harvard Lampoon guy somewhere.
Yeah.
Do comics get hired as speechwriters?
I mean, John Lovett, I guess he was, he did a little comedy.
John Lovett.
John Lovett.
My co-founder, co-host.
What is it?
You guys bonded over having another guy with your names?
No, because I didn't really like, I don't know, it took us a while to put
together the
John Lovett, John Lovett's thing.
Because he didn't, because it's not like my name where it's spelled the exact
same.
Like.
What are you guys, stupid?
It's right there.
John Lovett, haven't you seen Rat Race?
I have seen Rat Race.
What were you doing, your homework?
No, no.
But yeah, no, so Lovett does comedy.
He was our, he was our funny guy.
He was our resident funny speechwriter.
That's insulting, actually.
You guys had real jobs.
And now you're podcasting and doing comedy?
Yeah.
It's, it's, come on.
It's pretty, it's a sweet gig.
When I see NBA players, NBA players doing podcasts, I'm like, I'm doing this
because I'm not in
the NBA.
Just please, you don't want no part of this.
This is a hell.
It's a lot easier than working in the White House, what I do now.
Yeah.
Yeah, you're lazy and rich.
Just get to, just get to talk about politics.
You're, you went to Holy Cross.
Mm-hmm.
You and Bill Simmons.
Yep.
Roommates.
Okay.
You're in a love triangle with Simmons.
Yeah.
And Clarence Thomas.
Yeah.
Do you think Simmons was power ranking girls at college?
You'll have to ask him.
Zuckerberg was, I think.
Yeah.
The, that's the, yeah, that was the, the, the movie.
That's how the whole thing started.
That's, yeah, he was doing power ranking.
Yeah.
I wonder if Zuck and Simmons ever linked up.
It's like hot or not, and then like 15 years later, genocide.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Going back to like comics writing for politicians, you know how like when our
government lets BB
just do open mic night to be mean to the president, we just let him go to the,
to the, the government
to give a speech and be like, Obama's a bitch.
Because the Republicans invited him.
We didn't, Obama didn't even invite him.
Yeah, but you're the president.
You got to be like, I'll kill you if you.
He could have tried that.
He had a line where I'm like, it's got to be, it's Jerry.
Jerry's, Jerry's in the writer's room for sure.
When he was like, they say gays for Gaza.
What about, it's like saying chickens for KFC.
That's got to be a Jerry.
That has to be a Jerry.
Do you know, can you confirm or deny that Jerry Seinfeld's writing for Prime
Minister Benjamin
and Yasser?
I can do neither.
Can you call Jerry Seinfeld and ask him?
I don't know Jerry Seinfeld.
You know Jerry Seinfeld.
No.
You know Jerry Seinfeld.
You're a college valedictorian, right?
And then you go into the Kerry campaign shortly thereafter.
Okay.
You're a speechwriter.
You're probably the youngest person in the room a lot of the time.
But you were like kind of a fly on the wall for like history.
So like, what was it like, like that arrival of Barack Obama?
Like.
Yeah.
So I was, I was at the DNC in Boston.
And I was a junior speechwriter at that point in the Kerry campaign.
I was backstage and all the speakers would like send their speeches to the
Kerry campaign team.
And so I was supposed to like make sure that all the speeches were on message
for the Kerry campaign.
Yeah.
And then my boss, the head speechwriter at the time, now, now Congressman Josh
Gottheimer
from New Jersey, he called me, he was on the road with Kerry and he was like,
hey, there
is a, there's a line in Barack Obama's speech who's giving the keynote that
John Kerry wants
to use in his speech.
And I was like, all right.
And he's like, well, they both can't use the same line.
He stole his bit?
So he was like, well, I'm like, what are you talking, what are you telling me
for?
He's like, you have to get the line out of Obama's speech.
I was like, what?
So I have to go down the hall to where Obama's practicing the speech for the
first time on teleprompter.
Wait, go into the practice.
I want to, how did he do that?
He, how did he?
How's Barack Obama like, he's, I'm about to kill it.
Yeah, like what?
Well, he'd never.
Does he in a mirror?
He had never read off a prompter before.
So he had to learn to use a teleprompter because he had never like given a
prepared speech.
He's like a state senator, you know?
So he was an idiot too.
He was an idiot too.
So that entire White House are idiots.
Yeah, for sure.
For sure.
And so he's practicing and I have to go in.
I'm like 21 at the time, 22.
And hot.
You were a piece of, piece of ass.
So hot.
I was so hot.
I've been looking at pigs.
Shaved head?
Like 10 pounds heavier buzz cut.
Kind of yoked.
Trying to, trying to beat your dad up.
Trying to beat my dad up.
This summer break, I'm just kidding.
Just like, when I'm not in the campaign, I'm just trying to get Jack to beat my
dad up.
So then I, so I tell him about the line and he's so mad.
Obama.
Yeah.
He like came up to like, he's like this close to me and he's like looking down.
And, and I think I like blacked out for a few seconds.
But at that point, this very nice man, David Axarod, comes up to me and he was
like, hey
son, let's walk outside and we'll rewrite the line together.
And so we, Ax and I, that's my first introduction to him.
We go outside, we rewrite the line.
And.
Do you remember the line?
Yeah, it's the, it's the end of the red state, blue state riff.
Where he says like, there are no red states.
He stole red state, blue state?
He wanted to say, there are the United States, all of us pledging allegiance to
the red, white
and blue.
Oh, really?
And Kerry wanted red, white and blue.
And so instead, Obama changed it to like, all of us pledging allegiance to the
stars and
stripes.
I think we did.
So anyway.
To the green and yellow of Hezbollah.
Yeah.
Hezbollah, green and yellow.
That was the alt.
Obama.
And, and I figured like that was, that was it.
That was the last time that I would see Obama again.
But then when Kerry lost and Obama won the Senate, Robert Gibbs, who was his
communications
director, had been my boss when I was a press assistant on the Kerry campaign,
was like,
hey, he needs a speechwriter.
Would you be interested now that he's in the Senate?
Would you be interested in just like sitting down with him?
And, and I was like, why does he need a speechwriter?
He's like, that's what he thinks.
He doesn't want a speechwriter either.
The guy he was mean to?
Yeah.
He's like, he's like, get that bitch from Kerry.
Well, so he didn't know it was me.
Oh, no.
He didn't remember me.
So I sit, so I sat down with him his first week in the Senate.
We have breakfast and we do the job interview.
He was so nice.
Great job interview.
He was like, where'd you grow up?
What's life like?
What's, what's your theory of speechwriting?
Why, why do you like?
What'd you say theory of speechwriting?
I was like, I don't have a theory of speechwriting, but I've talked about his
convention speech
in 2004 and why I loved it.
And, and then he was like, all right, well, I don't think I need a speechwriter,
but Gibbs
tells me I do.
And you seem nice enough.
So let's give this a whirl.
Whoa.
And then like a year later, we're sitting around reminiscing about the 2004
convention
and Obama, Obama's like, remember that little shit who tried to take the, from
the Kerry
campaign or tried to get, and I was like, that was me.
He's like, I would have never hired you.
And he started laughing.
He knew it was you.
At that point he did.
Oh, he was doing a bit.
No, no, no, no.
He, he found out at that moment, like a year later.
Have you told this story before?
This is great stuff.
I can't remember.
We got to tell Sorkin, we got to get Sorkin to all of this.
We should tell Sorkin, yeah.
Oh my God.
Yeah.
For the, for the, you know, the reboot.
How mean was he to do it?
When he found out he was, no, he was laughing.
He just couldn't believe it.
Now, now he loves it.
The first time.
You were like.
He was just like.
And you were like, whatever, you fucking state senator.
Well, like, you're a bitch, dude.
Yeah, right.
Yeah, it's like, I'm, I'm working for.
You're going nowhere, okay?
I'm working for the next president, John Kerry.
Yeah, yeah.

Jon Favreau's INSANE Obama Story

Do you? We don't. I don't know how to fix a car. No. We know how to write
speeches. Phenomenal
speech. Yeah. So he's like, my boy's a speech boy. My boy's, yeah. Yeah, yeah.
He's like,
he wanted you to play football and you're like, I gotta write. Never even
pushed me for that.
Did you grow up watching game tape of speeches? No. No. No. I didn't grow up in
a, like,
my parents liked to talk politics. They weren't, I wouldn't say they were
political,
but they didn't like to talk politics. And I remember, I do remember, like,
watching the 92
presidential debates with my dad. That was, like, my, one of my earliest
political memories. Yeah.
I remember my parents being so excited because he was a boomer. Yeah. And the
song was Fleetwood Mac.
Yeah. That was a big. They were like, it's one of us. And I remember, actually,
I remember the 88
campaign because Mike Dukakis. The helmet. The Democratic nominee. And my
mother's Greek
and her maiden name is Demarcus. And, and he was from Lowell. And my mother's
from, like, the town,
like, Woburn, which is right near Lowell in Massachusetts. And so, like, the
fact that he
was running for president was, like, the biggest deal ever. Really? Oh, yeah.
It was like a Greek. Yeah. Why would the Democrats run a Greek?
What are they going to run? From Massachusetts. They're going to run Stav next?
What do they do? Wait. Yeah. It's so funny that a picture of a helmet. I mean,
he really did look like a bitch ass in that picture. Yeah. But that's short,
too. That's
the kind of thing that can sway an election. It feels like nowadays, like, we
forgot Trump
got shot two days later. Like, yeah. And then Joe Biden dropped out two days
later. Yeah.
Those are the good days. Those are crazy summer. Yeah. It sucks that Biden did,
like, his first
funny thing before he dropped out. Which was? He's like, when he's, like, he
was with Zelensky.
And he was like, ladies and gentlemen, President Putin.
It was like he was, like, doing the music guest on SNL.
Ladies and gentlemen, President Putin.
I remember that press conference. That was a rough one.
Who was forcing him to do that? The wife?
No, him. No, it was the wife.
I think she was encouraging.
Jill was like, go out there.
I think they were like, you do you. Like, we're going to be with you no matter
what you
want to do. And it was like, you want some people when you're President of the
United
States around you who will tell you difficult things that you don't want to
hear.
I thought you were going to say laugh at all your jokes. Did Obama ever tell
just a shit
joke and you fake laughed? You definitely did.
Probably.
Yeah, yeah. It's the president.
Yeah. I would definitely. I am an easy laugh anyway, but yeah, I'm sure I fake
laughed at
some of his jokes. And you're like, come on, Mr. President.
That's not good.
That's, that's sexist. You can't say that about women.
I shouldn't have shown you Entourage.
Do you remember your boss? He said that his favorite show was Entourage.
Did he say that?
Yeah, it's so sick.
So sick. That's so us.
That's so us.
That's so us, dude.
I mean, you were 28 years old in the West Wing of the White House.
You watched the show before?
I did.
So sick.
I was in college.
Yeah, so I watched it then.
So what's your, you think you're Sam?
Yeah.
But you want to be Josh.
Do I?
Anti-Semite. He's the anti-Semite.
That's what it is.
You want to be Toby, the coolest guy on the show.
Was there a Toby in the squad with you guys?
I see, Toby was communications director.
Yeah, but he was a little dark.
Yeah.
I don't know.
All the characters were just an amalgam of people in the White House.
So it's like, Toby was like David Axarod, little Toby, you know?
Yeah.
But also like the communications director.
I guess Pfeiffer could have been a little tough.
So you were like a Donna, you're saying?
I was a Donna.
You were a Donna.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
Did you have, you were the boss of people older than you at 28?
Let's see.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Couple.
We were pretty young, though, as a group, the speechwriters.
Really?
Yeah, so I think most of them were my age or younger, but like Ben Rhodes is a
couple
years older than me.
No one's too older, too much older than me.
Was there any Harvard Lampoon guys?
No, we didn't have any Harvard Lampoon guys.
That's actually a serious question that I said as a joke, but it actually is
plausible.
Yeah.
They're everywhere.
Yeah, you always run into a fucking Harvard Lampoon guy somewhere.
Yeah.
Do comics get hired as speechwriters?
I mean, John Lovett, I guess he was, he did a little comedy.
John Lovett.
John Lovett.
My co-founder, co-host.
What is it?
You guys bonded over having another guy with your names?
No, because I didn't really like, I don't know, it took us a while to put
together the
John Lovett, John Lovett's thing.
Because he didn't, because it's not like my name where it's spelled the exact
same.
Like.
What are you guys, stupid?
It's right there.
John Lovett, haven't you seen Rat Race?
I have seen Rat Race.
What were you doing, your homework?
No, no.
But yeah, no, so Lovett does comedy.
He was our, he was our funny guy.
He was our resident funny speechwriter.
That's insulting, actually.
You guys had real jobs.
And now you're podcasting and doing comedy?
Yeah.
It's, it's, come on.
It's pretty, it's a sweet gig.
When I see NBA players, NBA players doing podcasts, I'm like, I'm doing this
because I'm not in
the NBA.
Just please, you don't want no part of this.
This is a hell.
It's a lot easier than working in the White House, what I do now.
Yeah.
Yeah, you're lazy and rich.
Just get to, just get to talk about politics.
You're, you went to Holy Cross.
Mm-hmm.
You and Bill Simmons.
Yep.
Roommates.
Okay.
You're in a love triangle with Simmons.
Yeah.
And Clarence Thomas.
Yeah.
Do you think Simmons was power ranking girls at college?
You'll have to ask him.
Zuckerberg was, I think.
Yeah.
The, that's the, yeah, that was the, the, the movie.
That's how the whole thing started.
That's, yeah, he was doing power ranking.
Yeah.
I wonder if Zuck and Simmons ever linked up.
It's like hot or not, and then like 15 years later, genocide.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Going back to like comics writing for politicians, you know how like when our
government lets BB
just do open mic night to be mean to the president, we just let him go to the,
to the, the government
to give a speech and be like, Obama's a bitch.
Because the Republicans invited him.
We didn't, Obama didn't even invite him.
Yeah, but you're the president.
You got to be like, I'll kill you if you.
He could have tried that.
He had a line where I'm like, it's got to be, it's Jerry.
Jerry's, Jerry's in the writer's room for sure.
When he was like, they say gays for Gaza.
What about, it's like saying chickens for KFC.
That's got to be a Jerry.
That has to be a Jerry.
Do you know, can you confirm or deny that Jerry Seinfeld's writing for Prime
Minister Benjamin
and Yasser?
I can do neither.
Can you call Jerry Seinfeld and ask him?
I don't know Jerry Seinfeld.
You know Jerry Seinfeld.
No.
You know Jerry Seinfeld.
You're a college valedictorian, right?
And then you go into the Kerry campaign shortly thereafter.
Okay.
You're a speechwriter.
You're probably the youngest person in the room a lot of the time.
But you were like kind of a fly on the wall for like history.
So like, what was it like, like that arrival of Barack Obama?
Like.
Yeah.
So I was, I was at the DNC in Boston.
And I was a junior speechwriter at that point in the Kerry campaign.
I was backstage and all the speakers would like send their speeches to the
Kerry campaign team.
And so I was supposed to like make sure that all the speeches were on message
for the Kerry campaign.
Yeah.
And then my boss, the head speechwriter at the time, now, now Congressman Josh
Gottheimer
from New Jersey, he called me, he was on the road with Kerry and he was like,
hey, there
is a, there's a line in Barack Obama's speech who's giving the keynote that
John Kerry wants
to use in his speech.
And I was like, all right.
And he's like, well, they both can't use the same line.
He stole his bit?
So he was like, well, I'm like, what are you talking, what are you telling me
for?
He's like, you have to get the line out of Obama's speech.
I was like, what?
So I have to go down the hall to where Obama's practicing the speech for the
first time on teleprompter.
Wait, go into the practice.
I want to, how did he do that?
He, how did he?
How's Barack Obama like, he's, I'm about to kill it.
Yeah, like what?
Well, he'd never.
Does he in a mirror?
He had never read off a prompter before.
So he had to learn to use a teleprompter because he had never like given a
prepared speech.
He's like a state senator, you know?
So he was an idiot too.
He was an idiot too.
So that entire White House are idiots.
Yeah, for sure.
For sure.
And so he's practicing and I have to go in.
I'm like 21 at the time, 22.
And hot.
You were a piece of, piece of ass.
So hot.
I was so hot.
I've been looking at pigs.
Shaved head?
Like 10 pounds heavier buzz cut.
Kind of yoked.
Trying to, trying to beat your dad up.
Trying to beat my dad up.
This summer break, I'm just kidding.
Just like, when I'm not in the campaign, I'm just trying to get Jack to beat my
dad up.
So then I, so I tell him about the line and he's so mad.
Obama.
Yeah.
He like came up to like, he's like this close to me and he's like looking down.
And, and I think I like blacked out for a few seconds.
But at that point, this very nice man, David Axarod, comes up to me and he was
like, hey
son, let's walk outside and we'll rewrite the line together.
And so we, Ax and I, that's my first introduction to him.
We go outside, we rewrite the line.
And.
Do you remember the line?
Yeah, it's the, it's the end of the red state, blue state riff.
Where he says like, there are no red states.
He stole red state, blue state?
He wanted to say, there are the United States, all of us pledging allegiance to
the red, white
and blue.
Oh, really?
And Kerry wanted red, white and blue.
And so instead, Obama changed it to like, all of us pledging allegiance to the
stars and
stripes.
I think we did.
So anyway.
To the green and yellow of Hezbollah.
Yeah.
Hezbollah, green and yellow.
That was the alt.
Obama.
And, and I figured like that was, that was it.
That was the last time that I would see Obama again.
But then when Kerry lost and Obama won the Senate, Robert Gibbs, who was his
communications
director, had been my boss when I was a press assistant on the Kerry campaign,
was like,
hey, he needs a speechwriter.
Would you be interested now that he's in the Senate?
Would you be interested in just like sitting down with him?
And, and I was like, why does he need a speechwriter?
He's like, that's what he thinks.
He doesn't want a speechwriter either.
The guy he was mean to?
Yeah.
He's like, he's like, get that bitch from Kerry.
Well, so he didn't know it was me.
Oh, no.
He didn't remember me.
So I sit, so I sat down with him his first week in the Senate.
We have breakfast and we do the job interview.
He was so nice.
Great job interview.
He was like, where'd you grow up?
What's life like?
What's, what's your theory of speechwriting?
Why, why do you like?
What'd you say theory of speechwriting?
I was like, I don't have a theory of speechwriting, but I've talked about his
convention speech
in 2004 and why I loved it.
And, and then he was like, all right, well, I don't think I need a speechwriter,
but Gibbs
tells me I do.
And you seem nice enough.
So let's give this a whirl.
Whoa.
And then like a year later, we're sitting around reminiscing about the 2004
convention
and Obama, Obama's like, remember that little shit who tried to take the, from
the Kerry
campaign or tried to get, and I was like, that was me.
He's like, I would have never hired you.
And he started laughing.
He knew it was you.
At that point he did.
Oh, he was doing a bit.
No, no, no, no.
He, he found out at that moment, like a year later.
Have you told this sto