Manny Pacquiao meets President Obama

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Manny Pacquiao and his wife, Jinkee, made a brief visit to the White House Tuesday and visited with President Obama, the boxer’s publicist said.

Pacquiao, in the midst of a national promotional tour hyping his May 7 world welterweight bout against Pomona’s Shane Mosley, stopped in Washington to first meet with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), for whom Pacquiao campaigned before the senator’s narrow victory in November.

As Pacquiao walked toward the White House, a cluster of cars stopped to watch him and a four-car pileup occurred with no major injuries, Pacquiao’s publicist Fred Sternburg said.

Inside the White House, Pacquiao, a congressman in the Philippines, invited President Obama to the May 7 bout at MGM Grand. Obama declined but said he’d watch the bout on pay-per-view.

The pair had a conversation mostly about ‘boxing and basketball,’ Pacquiao said, and took a photo with both posed in a boxing stance.

Obama told Pacquiao he’d visit him in the Philippines. Asked if he received any advice for his own political career, Pacquiao declined to comment.

‘It was a great honor to be invited and to meet the president of the United States,’ Pacquiao said.

Obama presented Pacquiao three shopping bags of M&M’s with the presidential seal on them, along with a watch bearing the seal, Sternburg said.

-- Lance Pugmire