PRESIDENT OBAMA: Well — (laughter) — let me take all these in turn. I have had enough trouble back home picking my brackets for the college basketball tournament that’s taking place there — called March Madness — stirred up all kinds of controversy. The last thing I’m going to do is wade into European football. (Laughter.) That would be a mistake. I didn’t get a briefing on that, but I sense that would be a mistake. (Laughter.)
PRIME MINISTER BROWN: England will win I can tell you.
PRESIDENT OBAMA: So that would be point number one.
The thing I love about Great Britain is its people, and there is just a extraordinary affinity and kinship that we have. We owe so much to England; that when you come here there’s that sense of familiarity, as well as difference, that makes it just a special place.
I have — the only advice I would give Gordon Brown is the same advice that I gave myself during the campaign and that I’ve been giving myself over the last three months, which is over time good policy is good politics. And if every day you are waking up and you are making the very best decisions that you can, despite the fact that sometimes the cards in your hand aren’t very good and the options are narrow and the choices are tough, and you are assured to be second-guessed constantly, and that occasionally you’re going to make mistakes — but if every day you’re waking up saying, how can I make the best possible decisions to create jobs, help young people imagine a better future, provide care to the sick or the elderly or the vulnerable, sustain the planet — if those are the questions that you’re asking yourself, then I think you end up doing pretty good.
And the best part is you can wake up and look at yourself in the mirror. And that I think is the kind of integrity that Gordon Brown has shown in the past and will continue to show in the future.
PRIME MINISTER BROWN: It’s been an extraordinary visit already and I’ve benefitted from Barack’s advice not just about elections, but about fitness — we’ve been talking about not the — (laughter) — not the treadmill of politics, but the treadmill that we’re both on every day, the running machines, and how you can manage to do that when you’re traveling around the world and going to different countries, and we’ve been exchanging ideas.
Can I also say it’s an extraordinary privilege to have Secretary of State Clinton here and Secretary of State Geithner [sic] and we wish them well in everything that they do as well.