President Obama was the butt of a voter’s joke in Chicago Monday when he visited a polling station in order to encourage early voting ahead of the midterm elections.
According to The Hill, a voter later identified as Mike Jones warned, “Mr. President, don’t touch my girlfriend!”
“I really wasn’t planning on it,” Obama responded.
Jones was referring to his fiancee Aia Cooper, who stood visibly embarrassed at the voting station next to the president.
“I am sorry, please excuse him,” Cooper said. “I knew he was going to say something smart.”
The president then told Cooper of the comment, “There’s an example of a brother just embarrassing me for no reason whatsoever.”
He then proceeded to babble on about a hypothetical conversation Cooper would have with her friends about the incident, provoking her nervous laughs.
“Fortunately, the president was nice about it, so it’s alright,” he joked.
“I am freaking out right now,” Cooper said.
Then, Obama did what any embarrassed adolescent boy would do: He tried to get Jones back for embarrassing him.
“You’re gonna kiss me, give him something to talk about,” Obama told Cooper, bestowing on her a hug and a kiss. “Now, he’s really jealous.”
After the incident, Cooper recounted the hug and kiss to reporters.
“On the cheek, just the cheek — please, Michelle, don’t come after me — just the cheek!” she said.
According to the New York Post, Jones had an answer for his behavior.
“It was so silent in there and everyone was just taking pictures,” he told reporters of Obama’s photo op at the polling station. “I figured I had to say something to make people laugh.”
In addition to encouraging early voting, Obama was also in Chicago campaigning for Illinois Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn, who is in a close race for reelection.
Watch video of the voting station encounter, via CNN.
