President Obama Eats a Half-Mauled Salmon Carcass in Alaska and Likes It Very Much

President Obama recently returned from a three-day trip to Alaska and the Arctic to push his climate agenda, but not before recording a clip for the reality TV show Running Wild with Bear Grylls for NBC. Grylls is the irrepressible British TV star who has made a career of eating absolutely anything to get out of pickles in the wilderness—combined with his survivalist know-how and occasional nudity.

In the short clip, broadcast on Today this morning, the president can be seen gingerly nibbling on the “bloody carcass” of an salmon that Grylls has cooked up on a portable stove after finding it on a riverbank. The fish had been previously chewed on by an actual bear, Grylls informed the president.

The verdict: “Bear’s a mediocre cook, but the fact that we ate something recognizable was encouraging,” Obama said—referring to Grylls’s penchant for eating just about anything, like raw snake or giant larva. “Now, the fact that he told me this was a leftover fish from a bear, I don’t know if that was necessary,” the president said. “He could have just left that out.”

Obama is called “the bear” himself occasionally, when he gets restless and starts doing unexpected things in public, outside the confines of his Secret Service bubble. “‘The bear is loose’: Is Obama breaking free or running away?” asked the Washington Post, last year. “As president, I am in what’s called the bubble, and Secret Service makes sure that I’m always out of danger, which I very much appreciate, but it can be a little confining,” he told Grylls, according to Today.

“This has got to be one of the best days of my presidency,” he said.

Obama also ate dog meat as a child, which, you’ll remember, unleashed a torrent of attacks from conservatives.

Correction: I wrongly referred to the salmon enjoyed by Obama and Grylls as “Atlantic” in an earlier version of this post. As Paul Arden, the communications director for congressman Jared Huffman (D-CA), points out by email: “Where’d you get the bit about it being Atlantic salmon? Should be Pacific salmon if it really did come from a bear? Looked like coho or sockeye…”

More Mother Jones reporting on Climate Desk

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate