Mark Hamill Crashes White House Press Briefing, Offers Praise For President ‘Joe-bi Wan Kenobi’

Pop culture icon and Star Wars actor Mark Hamill kicked off Friday’s White House press briefing wearing a new pair of aviator shades — a gift from President Joe Biden.

Hamill told a delighted White House press corps that he had a visit with the president, calling Biden “the most legislatively successful president in my lifetime” and listing a few of Biden’s accomplishments. He also seemed to be as pleasantly surprised to be there as everyone else in the room:

How many of you had “Mark Hamill will lead the press briefing” on your bingo card? Hands? Yeah. Me either. And look, I just got to meet the president, and he gave me these aviator glasses. I love the merch. I love it all. But listen, I just wanted to say I was honored to be asked to come to the White House to meet the president, the most legislatively successful president in my lifetime.

And, you know, I don’t have to go through the list. The Bipartisan Infrastructure law, the PACT Act, the Chips Act, all of that, inflation, 15 million jobs. It’s all good. I mean, I was really thrilled to meet the entire staff because, you know, it’s not just one person. It’s like a composite endeavor. And all these people, my goodness. You know, I mean, I have no idea. I had no idea just what went into what is on his plate on a daily basis. So, that’s pretty much it. I’m open to questions, although no Star Wars questions, please. But I want to say once again how grateful I am, and it just shows you that, one person can be so influential and so positive in our lives. And, again, thank you so much. And Peter Baker, I loved your book.

CBS News’s Weijia Jang had a question for Hamill:

Jang: Wow. Thank you, Mark Hamill for being here. What did you ask, what did you talk about with the president?

Hamill: Well, first of all, I only expected to be there for, like, five minutes. He showed us all his photographs, and, you know, it was really amazing to me because, you know, I was invited to the Carter White House, and I came, and then I came to the Obama White House, but I never was invited into the Oval Office and it was a large gathering. So this one was really extra special.

He also described this exchange with Biden: “I called him ‘Mr. President.’ He said, ‘You can call me Joe.’ And I said, ‘Can I call you Joe-bi-Wan Kenobi?’ He liked that.” At that point, he kicked the briefing back to White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre.

Watch the video above via Twitter.