Who knew the president of the United States was such a big Batman fan? Stories like this one is why the pop culture section of Batman News exists!

The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg wrote a big cover story on President Obama. After speaking with several important people for his piece, Goldberg learned that Obama began using a Joker/The Dark Knight analogy to explain why ISIS posed a direct threat to the United States—and why defeating the group should be an urgent U.S. priority:

Advisers recall that Obama would cite a pivotal moment in The Dark Knight, the 2008 Batman movie, to help explain not only how he understood the role of ISIS, but how he understood the larger ecosystem in which it grew. “There’s a scene in the beginning in which the gang leaders of Gotham are meeting,” the president would say. “These are men who had the city divided up. They were thugs, but there was a kind of order. Everyone had his turf. And then the Joker comes in and lights the whole city on fire. ISIL is the Joker. It has the capacity to set the whole region on fire. That’s why we have to fight it.”

SOURCE: The Atlantic