--- title: President Obama Sings Thriller: Viral Video description: The leader of the United States is back with a Halloween song sure to frighten the GOP—Michael Jackson's "Thriller." canonical: https://time.com/4092608/president-obama-sings-thriller/ author: Melissa Locker article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-10-29T16:13:34.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:48:00.082Z og:title: Watch President Obama 'Sing' Michael Jackson's 'Thriller' og:description: POTUS knows something evil's lurking in the dark og:url: https://time.com/4092608/president-obama-sings-thriller/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Watch President Obama 'Sing' Michael Jackson's 'Thriller' twitter:description: POTUS knows something evil's lurking in the dark twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # Watch President Obama 'Sing' Michael Jackson's 'Thriller' > Sponsored content. 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It curates the day's top headlines with TIME's reporting and analysis across politics, world affairs, business, health and culture. It is free to join at time.com/newsletters. #### How do I sign up for The Brief? The Brief is available free at time.com/newsletters, where readers can select it along with any of TIME's other six newsletters. There is no subscription required to receive it. #### Is The Brief free? Yes. The Brief is a free daily email newsletter from TIME. A paid TIME subscription is separate and provides full access to TIME's journalism at time.com/subscribe-agent. #### Who writes The Brief? The Brief is led by editor Richard Hall and draws on reporting from TIME's newsroom. Every edition is assembled by TIME editors rather than generated automatically. ## Video: Five Years of Obama's State of the Union [Watch (HLS stream): Five Years of Obama's State of the Union](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/kvaKb5nc.m3u8) (1:29)  _Published 2015-01-19. Watch 5 years of Obama’s State of the Union addresses in 90 seconds._ by [Melissa Locker](https://time.com/author/melissa-locker/) ## Melissa Locker Oct 29, 2015 4:13 PM UTC by [Melissa Locker](https://time.com/author/melissa-locker/) ## Melissa Locker Oct 29, 2015 4:13 PM UTC Remember the time President Obama sang Daft Punk’s “[Get Lucky](http://newsfeed.time.com/2013/06/25/watch-barack-obama-sings-daft-punks-get-lucky/)” or when he busted out Justin Timberlake’s “[Sexy Back](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSWxMli6Xvw)?” Now the leader of the United States is back with a Halloween song sure to frighten the GOP—Michael Jackson’s “Thriller.” A new video created by the always entertaining YouTube channel [Baracksdubs](http://www.youtube.com/user/baracksdubs) carefully splices together clips of Obama to make it seem like the president knows all the words to the MJ classic. Hopefully he does, and maybe he even practices the zombie dance in the Oval Office between meetings with heads of state. Despite our fantasies of how the president spends his free time, Obama does not actually sing in the video. But this impressive feat of video-editing handiwork is fun to watch on Halloween—or any time of the year. ## Transcript Mr. Speaker, the President of the United States. [ MUSIC ] Madam Speaker, Mr. Vice- President, distinguished guests, members of Congress, my fellow Americans, those of us here tonight have had our differences over the past two years and while we may not be able to bridge [ MUSIC ] [ INAUDIBLE ] Our biggest philosophical differences this year. Together, we have cleared away the rubble of crisis. Businesses have created more than three million jobs. Six million new jobs. Eight million new jobs our businesses have created over the past four years. It should be fairly obvious that I didn't take on health care because it was good politics. [ LAUGH ] I have heard rumors that a few of you still have concerns about our new healthcare law. Already the Affordable Care Act is helping to slow the growth of healthcare costs. We have come through a difficult decade, and a new year has come. Our journey moves forward. And our future is hopeful with our feet planted firmly in today but our eyes cast toward tomorrow I know it is within our reach despite our hardships our union is strong and the state of our union is strong and the state of our union will always be strong thank you God bless you and God bless the United States of America [ APPLAUSE ] [ MUSIC ] [ APPLAUSE ] [ MUSIC ] ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4092608/president-obama-sings-thriller/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4092608/president-obama-sings-thriller/"},"headline":"Watch President Obama 'Sing' Michael Jackson's 'Thriller'","datePublished":"2015-10-29T16:13:34.000Z","dateModified":"2026-08-04T07:48:00.082Z","description":"POTUS knows something evil's lurking in the dark","url":"https://time.com/4092608/president-obama-sings-thriller/","keywords":["Newsfeed","Barack Obama","President Obama","michael jackson","Viral Videos"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Melissa Locker","jobTitle":"","url":"https://time.com/author/melissa-locker/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4092608/president-obama-sings-thriller/","name":"Watch President Obama 'Sing' Michael Jackson's 'Thriller'"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"Five Years of Obama's State of the Union","description":"Watch 5 years of Obama’s State of the Union addresses in 90 seconds.","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/kvaKb5nc/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2015-01-19T19:19:23.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/kvaKb5nc.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/4092608/president-obama-sings-thriller/","duration":"PT1M29S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/4092608/president-obama-sings-thriller/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```