Obama heads to Camp Pendleton after online chat, Jay Leno visit

By Carla Rivera

Aug. 7, 2013 8:32 AM PT

President Obama heads to Camp Pendleton on Wednesday to meet with troops and their families, concluding a two-day Southern California trip that featured an online chat focusing on housing and a visit to the “The Tonight Show wth Jay Leno.”

At the Marine Corps base in San Diego County, Obama plans to thank military families for their service to the country, according to the White House.

Earlier in the day, the president was scheduled to answer questions from homeowners on the real estate website Zillow. The chat will be live-streamed on the White House website, Zillow.com and Yahoo.com beginning at 10 a.m.

Questions can be submitted on the Facebook page of Zillow, an Internet real estate database, by tweeting a question to @Zillow using the hashtag #askobamahousing or by creating a short video submission on YouTube, Instagram or Vine and sharing it on Twitter or Facebook using the hashtag #askobamahousing.

The discussion will be moderated by Zillow chief executive Spencer Rascoff.

Obama has been seeking changes in the nation’s troubled housing finance system as part of overall push to improve the economy.

On the Leno show in Burbank, Obama criticized Russia’s new anti-gay laws, as well as that country’s decision to grant temporary asylum to former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden, accused of leaking U.S. secrets.

The Russia law bans “propaganda of nontraditional sexual relations.”

“I’ve been very clear that when … you are discriminating on the basis of race, religion, gender or sexual orientation, you are violating the basic morality that I think should transcend every country,” Obama said, according to a transcript of the Tuesday night interview. “And I have no patience for countries that try to treat gays or lesbians or transgender persons in ways that intimidate them or are harmful to them.”

In a wide-ranging discussion, Obama also referenced the acquittal for George Zimmerman in the Trayvon Martin shooting, saying “the system should work for everybody.”

“What I’m trying to do is to make sure we have a conversation and that we all ask ourselves are there some things we can do to foster better understanding and to make sure we don’t have laws that encourage the kind of violent encounter we saw there that resulted in tragedy,” Obama said.

In a lighter moment, he rebutted Leno’s kidding about his love of broccoli, insisting, “I have broccoli a lot, you can ask my staff, it’s one of my staples. Me and broccoli, I don’t know, we got a thing going on.”

Following the “Tonight Show” appearance, Obama traveled by helicopter and motorcade to a Hilton hotel in Woodland Hills, where he spent the night.

As usual, the president’s motorcade produced consternation and traffic jams affecting parts of the San Fernando Valley, especially along Hollywood Way, Olive Avenue and Burbank Boulevard.

On Wednesday morning, the LAPD suggested drivers avoid these areas between 9:30 and 11:30 a.m.: