President Obama kicked off a White House meeting of tech CEOs Tuesday with high praise for the alternate Washington reality of the Netflix political drama “House of Cards.”
The gathering was reported to focus on the National Security Agency’s surveillance practices and Healthcare.gov, but the president took advantage of Netflix CEO Reed Hastings’ attendance to make a couple of quips about the show and its bearing on reality.
“I’m just wondering if Reed brought advance copies of ‘House of Cards,’” according to a pool video camera in the room, first reported TIME’s Zeke Miller.
The CEO responded that the president should make a cameo appearance in the series, and Obama went on to laud the workings of Washington in the show and those of its anti-hero, Frank Underwood, portrayed by Kevin Spacey.
“I wish things were that ruthlessly efficient,” the president said of the show. And of Spacey’s character, the Democratic House Majority Whip from South Carolina: “This guy’s getting a lot of stuff done.”
And in such wonderful ways.
“[H]e’s remorselessly self- interested, desiring power for power’s sake,” Beau Willimon, writer for the series, has said of the character.
A new season of the show is set to be released in-full on Feb. 14, 2014.
Check out video of the meeting below.
(h/t Zeke Miller)
