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>>196048White House Press Pool Reports @WHPressPool - In-town pool report. Columbus event quotes
The East Room ceremony to mark Columbus Day was open admission to pre-credential press and was streamed. But some highlights:
The room was packed with about 300, almost all of them standing and most wearing lapel pins with crossed U.S. and Italian flags. Behind the lectern were three U.S. flags and three presidential flags. Large photographs of the two Columbus statues flanked the flags. Hail to the Chief was played at 11:23 and the president entered the room to applause and Christopher Macchio sang the National Anthem to more applause. “That’s the way it’s supposed to be sung,” observed the president, making a crack about “rock stars that can barely sing.” He added “I have a good ear for music.”
He then turned to the point of the event. “I really believe I resurrected Christopher Columbus,” he said. He spoke until 12:24, often jumping to other topics before returning to Columbus and veering off. Some snippets:
“I think I probably got close to 100% of the Italian vote. You saw what happened in Jersey City where they wanted to rip down the statue of Christopher Columbus… Let's say that some of your rougher members of your community stood around and say, ‘Come on, let's go. Let's go. Come on. Let's try that.’ Did you see that? That was the coolest. By the way, it's still standing.”
He noted Energy Secretary Chris Wright. “He's not Italian, but .. We have I think some big news on that diesel situation. We're going to be knocking the hell out of it. And remember, what have we done? We stopped Iran from having a nuclear weapon.”
He called attention to OMB Director Russell Vought, “who's going to be making a tremendous announcement. He'll be even more important than Chris if he pulls this off, but he's working on something that's going to be so good for our country.”
Back to Columbus… “In 1492, Christopher Columbus undertook one of the boldest voyages in the history of our planet with just around 90 men… Christopher Columbus changed the future of humanity forever. And in this administration, we know that Christopher Columbus is to us, he's a hero. He's a hero.” Those who think “that's a terrible thing” are “the fake news. I feel that I with some of the people in this room, we resurrected Christopher Columbus.”
Before he came back to office, he said, “You couldn't even say his name. If you said his name, then start writing stories about you like you're some kind of…Now we're very proud and we have a statue of Christopher Columbus in front of one of the most important buildings in Washington, the executive office building right across the street, the Eisenhower Building. And everyone loves it.”
He added, “By the way, four or five years ago would've been maybe different. But they say thank you so much for putting that statue there. No, he's been rehabbed 100 percent and he's been resurrected in a true sense and he's back to where he should be.” He said what happed to the Columbus statues “was a great affront to the Italo-American and the Italian community, but the Italo-American community was incensed and nobody did anything for them. And they realized what we all did.”
He added, “Yet, as you know, the radical left communists hate Columbus and they want to abolish Columbus Day. They're still trying very hard.” He then referred to Abdul El-Sayed, the Democrat running for the senate in Michigan. “You know this guy, I call him Muhammad Al-Sayed. Some people call him Abdul, I call him Mohammed. Somebody said why? I said, "I don't know.
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