Obama makes visit to Burbank for appearance on 'Ellen' show

Obama makes visit to Burbank for appearance on ‘Ellen’ show

President Barack Obama's motorcade heads south on Hollywood Way after landing at Bob Hope Airport on Marine 1, in Burbank on Thursday, Feb. 11, 2016. Obama was heading to tape the Ellen DeGeneres show.

Feb. 11, 2016 5:36 PM PT

President Obama was in Burbank on Thursday afternoon to tape an appearance on the “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” at the Warner Bros. lot. Later in the day, he spoke at a pair of Democratic fundraisers in Los Angeles.

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The trip to the Southland brought road closures in parts of Burbank and Los Angeles on Thursday. Operations at Bob Hope Airport were briefly halted on Obama’s arrival there by helicopter.

The “Ellen” interview, the first with a sitting president in-studio, aired Friday. Obama was last in the studio — and showed off some dance moves — as Illinois’ junior senator campaigning for the Oval Office in October 2007. He has subsequently appeared via satellite.

The president stayed overnight in L.A. and headed to Rancho Mirage on Friday for a two-day summit with leaders from Southeast Asia that will begin Monday.

Chad Garland, chad.garland@latimes.com

Twitter: @chadgarland

Chad Garland

Chad Garland covered the city of Burbank and Bob Hope Airport for the Burbank Leader until 2016. Previously, he has covered Arizona’s congressional delegation in Washington, D.C., for Cronkite News Service and Oregon’s Legislature for the Associated Press. His work investigating questionable veterans’ charities as part of the award-winning News21 national investigative project “Back Home” earned a “Best in Business” award from the Society of American Business Editors and Writers in 2013. Before becoming a reporter, he spent more than a decade in various assignments related to national defense. An Illinois native, his first California address was at Marine Corps boot camp in San Diego. He has degrees from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Arizona State University, as well as a diploma from the Army’s Defense Language Institute in Monterey, where he learned to speak Russian.