BURBANK, Calif. — For the past few months, Jay Leno’s decided President Barack Obama makes for a good joke. 
 
 That’s a problem for the White House — one that the president came here Tuesday trying to fix. 
 
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 reset Obama gives Leno car for collection Obama: 'No patience' for Russia's anti-gay laws 
 
 Throughout his career, Leno’s demonstrated show business’s most accurate sense of what the greatest denominator of people find funny. Leno may make his fellow comedians and the Amtrak corridor groan, but he’s spent 20 years on top of the ratings, and is finishing his run at the “Tonight Show” with them on the rise. 
 
 (PHOTOS: Obama’s second term) 
 
 Obama and Leno covered a lot of serious ground — about the threat to U.S. embassies, the troubled relationship with Russia over Edward Snowden and the country’s anti-gay laws, and the NSA’s surveillance activities. And they also covered Obama’s relationships with former rivals John McCain and Hillary Clinton, how the president really does like broccoli, and even added the obligatory joke about getting so old that he and his friends needed ibuprofen after they played basketball and golf together on his birthday. 
 
 But even in an interview that was the most gracious and substantive he’s conducted in months, none of what Obama said mattered nearly as much as the underlying message of his sober, charming, occasionally smiling display as he sat cross-legged at Leno’s side for most of an hour: He’s campaigning to get back to being Barack Obama again. 
 
 One Jay Leno interview is unlikely to change perceptions overnight, but as Obama works to reframe himself ahead of the fall budget negotiations with Republicans, he’s got to win back the people and the places where the squeaky-voiced king of late night plays the strongest — those that most readers of Obama’s interview with The New York Times last week might tend to lump together as “middle America.” 
 
 (Also on POLITICO: Transcript of Jay Leno's interview with President Obama) 
 
 Hopeful conservatives have eagerly drawn a direct connection between Leno’s Obama jokes and his recent ratings surge, but the jokes seem to demonstrate Leno’s sense of his audience that’s deeper, more poisonous and potentially irreversible for any politician: They’ve heard it all before. And for a man who was propelled by the rhetoric of change, it turns out that Obama’s just like all the rest — a detached politician who makes them only shake their heads and laugh. 
 
 “The White House announced in the coming days President Obama will be reaching out to Americans who’ve lost their jobs,” Leno said to open the show. “In fact, that’s why he’s here with me tonight; he’s here to talk with me personally — that’s right, we’re going to work something out.” 
 
 Then Leno said he was excited for a face-to-face conversation, since that would save Obama “the trouble of going through my emails and phone calls.” 
 
 (Also on POLITICO: Obama: 'No patience' for anti-gay laws) 
 
 There’s no missing the numbers for Obama, whether that’s Gallup’s 44 to 48 percent approval-disapproval rating, or state-by-state polls. In two swing states he won last year, the Democratic firm Public Policy Polling shows Obama approval and disapproval even at 48 percent in Virginia, and dropped to 46 approval compared with 50 percent disapproval in Iowa as of a month ago. 
 
 Part of this is the natural attrition of a president working his way through his second term. Part is the unhealed wounds from the spring scandals. Part is the great national distaste for all things Washington. 
 
 (Also on POLITICO: Obama: Putin still a Cold Warrior) 
 
 Late-night comedians struggled to make jokes about Obama for five years — for all the time spent on the 2008 and 2012 elections, they never nailed the all-important caricature of him the way Al Gore was wooden or George W. Bush was dumb or John McCain was old (still a Leno joke as of Tuesday) or John Kerry and Mitt Romney were Thurston Howell IV and V. 
 
 Those days are gone. A George Mason University study released ahead of the Leno taping showed Obama was the most popular subject of late-night comedy of any public figure, prompting more than twice as many jokes as Anthony Weiner, the runner-up. ||||| President Barack Obama, left, talks with Jay Leno during a commercial break during the taping of his appearance on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. 
 
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 President Barack Obama gave an unexpectedly serious and wide-ranging interview to Jay Leno on Tuesday night, weighing in on a terror threat, U.S. tensions with Russia and even his recent lunch with Hillary Clinton on "The Tonight Show" — a venue where he was more accustomed to light-hearted joking. 
 
 Obama used his appearance on the show – his sixth – to give his first public comments on recent warnings of a possible terrorist attack on U.S. interests in the Middle East. The warnings have prompted the State Department to shutter 19 diplomatic posts across the Middle East and North Africa until Saturday. 
 
 "Well, it's significant enough that we're taking every precaution," Obama said to Leno, adding that radical violet extremism "is still out there, we've got to stay on top of it." 
 
 The president also reiterated the White House's warning that the threat was significant and urged Americans to act "prudently" when planning travel and checking in with the State Department and embassies to see what precautions they should be taking. 
 
 "The general rule is show some common sense and some caution," Obama said, as the first sitting president ever to go on the show, making his fourth appearance since he took office. 
 
 He also said that Americans have shined in times of danger and peril, pointing out that people kept going to ball games and went on business as usual after the Boston Marathon bombings in April. 
 
 "That's the right reaction. Terrorists depend on the idea that we're going to be terrorized," Obama said. 
 
 The president also commented on the case of National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden, plus the secret government data surveillance programs his leaks to the press uncovered. 
 
 "We don't have a domestic spying program," Obama said, defending some surveillance as a "critical component to counterterrorism" and saying the information it gathered was "useful." 
 
 Photos and Videos Audience Members React to President’s "Tonight Show" Appearance President Obama made his sixth appearance on the “Tonight Show” Tuesday. The President spoke to Jay Leno about the economy, his recent lunch with Hillary Clinton, and gay rights in Russia. Beverly White reports from Burbank for the NBC4 News at 6 p.m. on August 6, 2013. WATCH Audience 
 
 Members React to... "Tonight Show" Guests Surprised Obama Making Appearance Guests of the "Tonight Show With Jay Leno" were surprised to find out a secret guests was scheduled to be President Barack obama, who was in town for his sixth taping of the show. Toni Guinyard has the report for the NBC4 News at noon on Tuesday, Aug. 6, 2013. WATCH "Tonight 
 
 Show" Guests... More Photos and Videos 
 
 But NBC News' correspondent Andrea Mitchell told "The Rachel Maddow Show" Tuesday said that he also appeared to express some caution about the surveillance, suggesting some level of discomfort with the NSA's programs. 
 
 Obama didn't comment on the legality of Snowden's leaks. Snowden faces espionage charges for them and has been granted temporary asylum in Russia in the face of them. 
 
 "We don't know exactly yet what he did," Obama said. "It's important for me not to prejudge something." 
 
 The president said he was disappointed by Russia's decision to grant Snowden asylum, but maintained that the U.S relationship with Russia is still intact. 
 
 "There's still a lot of business that we can do with them, but there are times when they slip back into Cold War thinking," Obama said. 
 
 He confirmed to Leno that he will attend the G-20 summit in St. Petersburg with Russian president President Vladimir Putin — despite some protests that he should not, due to Russia's granting Snowden asylum, and others over Russia's new spate of laws cracking down on gay Russians' civil rights. On Wednesday, however, Obama canceled a meeting with Putin that had been scheduled on the sidelines of the summit. 
 
 Leno himself told MSNBC host Lawrence O'Donnell in an interview on his show "The Last Word" Tuesday night, after the Obama taping, that the question of Russia — and of its crackdown on gay rights — was one he had most looked forward to asking Obama. The president said he had no patience for countries that try intimidate or harm gay, lesbian or transgender people and said it was his duty to speak out about basic freedoms. 
 
 Another topic Leno had most wanted to ask Obama about: The high-profile case of Trayvon Martin and his fatal shooting by George Zimmerman, who was acquitted of second-degree murder and manslaughter last month. 
 
 
 
 
 
 Leno praised the president's public comments on the case and on the experiences of black men and boys in America and asked him about his remarks. 
 
 "I think all of us were troubled by what happened," Obama told Leno. "It doesn't mean Trayvon was a perfect kid. None of us were." 
 
 Obama said he thought the attention paid to the Martin shooting was indicative of how badly Americans want a fair and just criminal justice system. 
 
 "What I wanted to explain was why this was a particularly sensitive topic for the African-American community," he continued. "The system should work for everyone, and what I'm trying to do is just make sure that we have a conversation." 
 
 On "The Last Word" Tuesday night, after taping, Leno said he had been particularly interested in hearing about the comments on the shooting's impact. "He put every American in the shoes of the average black teenage boy," Leno said. 
 
 Leno also asked the president about the economy and the constant partisan battles in Congress over whether to boost the economy with infrastructure projects and other spending. And it was also pointed out that the president's health care law goes into full effect on Oct. 1. 
 
 
 
 
 
 The late-night host also took a few swings at the president for becoming a bit closer to his 2008 presidential rival, John McCain, who was recently instrumental in pushing a comprehensive immigration bill through the Senate. 
 
 Obama's appearance on Leno's show wasn't all serious, however, and he managed to have at least some fun with the late night host, with the help of some chat about former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, whom he lunched with recently. 
 
 "Who invited who to lunch?" Leno asked. 
 
 "I invited her, and we had a great time," Obama said. "She had that post-administration glow — you know, when folks leave the White House, and two weeks later they look great." 
 
 So was Clinton, a speculated 2016 presidential contender, measuring the Oval Office drapes for a possible future stint there? 
 
 "She's been there," Obama said of the former first lady. "She doesn't have to measure them." 
 

– President Obama covered a lot of bases—most of them serious—in his fourth Tonight Show appearance as president. Some highlights from the Jay Leno interview, which Politico sees as part of the president's push to "get back to being Barack Obama again" and stop being the butt of late-night jokes: On the global travel warning for US citizens: "The general rule is show some common sense and some caution," Obama said, praising the reactions of Americans who went about life as usual after the Boston Marathon bombing. "Terrorists depend on the idea that we're going to be terrorized," he said. On Trayvon Martin: "All of us were troubled by what happened, and any of us who are parents can imagine the heartache that those parents went through," Obama said after Leno praised his "eloquent" remarks after George Zimmerman's acquittal. "It doesn't mean that Trayvon was a perfect kid, none of us were," Obama said, adding that the issue of having a fair justice system for everybody is a "particularly sensitive topic for the African-American community." On Russia's anti-gay laws and the Sochi Olympics: "I think Putin and Russia have a big stake in making sure that the Olympics work," the president said, "and I think that they understand that for most of the countries that participate in the Olympics we wouldn't tolerate gays and lesbians being treated differently." On NSA surveillance and Edward Snowden: "We don't have a domestic spying program," claimed Obama, calling the controversial NSA programs "mechanisms that can track a phone number or an email address that is connected to a terrorist attack." He confirmed that he would attend the G20 summit in St. Petersburg and that the US-Russia relationship is intact, despite disappointment with Moscow's decision to grant asylum to Snowden. There is "still a lot of business that we can do with them, but there are times when they slip back into Cold War thinking," he said. The interview had a few lighter moments, including discussion of Obama's recent lunch with Hillary Clinton, NBC notes. Asked whether Clinton was measuring the Oval Office for drapes, Obama quipped, "Keep in mind she’s been there. She doesn’t have to measure them."