The Hill News

President Obama likened the Republican presidential primary to the game show Survivor, and said he’s going to “wait until everybody is voted off the island” before he starts paying attention to his competition.

Obama made the comments on Tuesday while taping NBC’s Tonight Show with Jay Leno, which will air tonight. It was his second appearance on the show as a sitting president.

Joking aside, Obama will discuss the execution of former Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi.

“Well, this is somebody who, for 40 years terrorized his country and supported terrorism,” he said. “And he had an opportunity during the Arab spring to finally let loose of his grip on power and to peacefully transition into democracy.”

“We gave him ample opportunity, and he wouldn’t do it,” Obama continued. “And, obviously, you never like to see anybody come to the kind of end that he did, but I think it obviously sends a strong! message around the world to dictators that people long to be free and they need to respect the human rights and universal aspirations of people.”

Leno also asked Obama about his struggles to find common ground with Congressional Republicans, and in particular, Sen. Mitch McConnell’s remark that his “single most important political goal” was to make Obama a one-term president.

“Look, I think the things that folks across the country are most fed up with, whether you are a Democrat, Republican, Independent, is putting party ahead of country, or putting the next election ahead of the next generation,” the president said.
 
Obama is on a swing through Nevada, Colorado and California to raise cash for his 2012 campaign and pitch portions of his jobs and housing plans.