In-town note 29: POTUS enters / remarks / out

POTUS, FLOTUS and Andrea Bocelli (and his wofe Veronica) entered to “Hail to the Chief.”

POTUS said it was an “incredible honor” to have Bocelli there and praised him as having been “in rare form” and “incredible” during the World Cup draw this morning.

Trump also noted that almost all GOP senators and some House members are present for the performance.

“And we have almost all of the Republican senators, and we have a lot of very distinguished House members, mostly Republicans, to the best of my knowledge, and we have our cabinet, and I have a lot of enemies, because everybody wanted to be here tonight, everybody,” he said.

POTUS then mused about the relative merits of Bocelli and the late Italian tenor Luciano Pavarotti.

“We’re going to hear a voice, the voice of an angel. It's a voice like very few people have never been able to hit, achieve, and I've had a lot of great friends. One of your great friends was Luciano Pavarotti, and as you know, he was a great friend of mine. And between the two of these men, I don't know it's a flip, it's a flip, very different. There's a sweetness about yours. There's a power about his. And when you put them all together. Let's call it a tie, but he was something very special, great friend of both of us,” he said.

Pool was ushered out at 2002 ET as the performance began.

Andrew Feinberg

White House Correspondent

The Independent

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