Jay Leno welcomed President Barack Obama back to the “Tonight Show” Tuesday night where the two gabbed about everything from the recent death of Libyan dictator Moammar Gaddafi, to the fried chicken at Roscoe’s Chicken and Waffles. 

Leno dived right into the conversation with the hard-hitting questions, asking Obama what he thought about the killing of Gaddafi and his heavily televised death.  

Obama answered saying, “You never like to see anybody come to the kind of end that he did, but I think it obviously sends a strong message around the world to dictators that people long to be free...” 

 Obama discussed with Leno about his recent decision to bring American troops home from Iraq before Christmas, which drew applause from the audience.  Obama said that Iraqis now have the opportunity to create their own democracy and create their own destiny.  

Transitioning from the topics of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Obama voiced his concerns about the conditions here in the U.S. “As we end the war in Iraq, we need to focus on rebuilding this country,” Obama said.

After dishing to Leno about the problems he’s been facing with congress and how he has been working around them, Leno asked the President what he makes of the Occupy Wall Street movement. 

Obama said he sympathized with the demonstrators saying, “What this signals is that people in leadership, whether it’s corporate leadership, leaders in the banks, leaders in Washington, everybody needs to understand that the American people feel like nobody is looking out for them right now.” 

After discussing why Obama doesn’t like his daughters, Sasha and Malia, watching reality TV like “Keeping up with the Kardashians,” Leno asked if he had been watching the GOP debates. To that Obama joked that he was going to “wait until everybody is voted off the island.”

“Once they narrow it down to one or two then I’ll start paying attention,” Obama laughed. 

All joking aside, Obama’s message on the “Tonight Show” was clear. The 2012 election is still a year away and there is still a lot of work to be done. 

“The election is 13 months away,” Obama said. “We’ve got a lot of time, and the last thing we need to be doing is saying to the American people that there’s nothing we can do until the next election. We’ve got to do some work right, putting people back to work.” 

Reach writer Kiran Kazalbash here