President Obama concludes visit to Los Angeles for fundraisers, Kimmel appearance
LOS ANGELES (FOX 11 / CNS)) - President Barack Obama Tuesday will conclude a 23-hour visit he made to Los Angeles to take part in two fundraisers and appear on "Jimmy Kimmel Live" and the usual traffic headaches for motorists on the westside.
President Obama in Los Angeles this week: List of street closures and areas to avoid
The president is scheduled to attend a fundraising roundtable discussion Tuesday morning to benefit the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee before flying back to Washington, D.C., according to the White House. No other details on the event were released.
Sunset Boulevard will be closed in Beverly Hills in both directions between Whittier and Bedford drives between 10:45 a.m. and 12:45 p.m.
Police recommend that drivers avoid the following areas because of expected traffic congestion.
Obama landed aboard Air Force One at Los Angeles International Airport early Monday afternoon and was greeted by Mayor Eric Garcetti and Los Angeles County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas. The three spoke for several minutes on the tarmac before Obama boarded a helicopter en route to his first destination.
Garcetti told reporters at the airport the conversation focused on some of the issues that will be facing local voters in November, including a bond measure to combat homelessness and a transit sales tax extension. He also noted that federal funding has played a key role in expanding the area's transit system, including the recent Expo Line extension from Culver City to Santa Monica.
After leaving the airport, Obama's first stop was Hollywood, where he taped an appearance on the ABC late-night talk show "Jimmy Kimmel Live," praising Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton and criticizing
Republican candidate Donald J. Trump.
He later spoke at a $100,000-per-person evening fundraiser in Beverly Hills on behalf of Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign at the home of DreamWorks Animation CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg and his wife Marilyn. The event was closed to reporters.
The Katzenberg event was the fourth Clinton campaign fundraiser in the Los Angeles area in seven weeks with a $100,000 price tag.
On "Jimmy Kimmel Live," Obama said Clinton "is smart as a whip, she does her homework, she works really hard, she cares deeply about working families in this country." He added that Clinton's pragmatic brand of politics
"may not attract as much attention, it's not something that goes into 140 characters as easily, but I think she will be an outstanding president."
Obama also told Kimmel his staff woke him up three or four times because of an emergency during his presidency. Turning to sports, he said that although he is a fan of the Chicago White Sox, he is happy that the Chicago Cubs had reached the World Series for the first time since 1945.
Like he did in his previous appearance on the show in 2015, Obama participated in the "Mean Tweets" segment, including one saying he couldn't negotiate ordering a Whopper without pickles.
Obama also used the appearance to condemn the shooting of two police officers in Ferguson, Missouri, and denounce "folks who disregard and disrespect the other side, people who resort to violence.''
In a standard bit on the show, Obama also read mean tweets about himself.
Another said, "Barack Obama, bro do you even lift?" drew the response "I lifted the ban on Cuban cigars, that's something."
The last tweet he responded to was an Aug. 2 tweet from Trump that said: "President Obama will go down as perhaps the worst president in the history of the United States!"
Obama's response: "At least I will go down as a president."
The visit is Obama's 26th to Los Angeles and Orange counties as president and the fundraisers, his 42nd and 43rd in the region. He conducted fundraisers during 22 of his past visits.
The trip is his first to the Southland since April 8 when he spoke at two fundraisers during a roughly 17-hour visit.
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