UPDATE: Beyonce On Obama At NYC Fundraiser: “We Believe In His Vision”

POTUS spoke to about 100 people at a fundraiser hosted by Jay-Z and Beyoncé at the 40/40 Club. Tickets for cost $40,000. Donors in suits and dresses sat on sofas in a large, dark glassy room. Small tables of wine, champagne and finger food, including sliders, were in front of them.

Beyonce, wearing a red cocktail dress, and Jay-Z, in a suit, introduced POTUS. Both said very little.”I can’t tell you how proud we are to host tonight’s event with President Obama,” Beyonce said. “We believe in his vision.”

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you. Thank you. (Applause.) Thank you. Well, it is wonderful to see all of you. I’m so grateful for all your support.

Let me just begin by saying to Jay and Bey, thank you so much for your friendship. We are so grateful. Michelle and Malia and Sasha are mad at me because they are not here. (Laughter.) That doesn’t usually happen. Usually they’re like, we’re glad you’re going — we don’t need to go. But every time they get a chance to see these two they are thrilled, partly because they are just both so generous, particularly to my kids. And Malia and Sasha just love both of them.

Beyoncé couldn’t be a better role model for our daughters because she carries herself with such class and poise — (applause) — and has so much talent. And Jay-Z now knows what my life is like. (Laughter.) We both have daughters, and our wives are more popular than we are. (Laughter and applause.) So we’ve got a little bond there. (Laughter.) It’s hard, but it’s okay. It’s okay. (Laughter.)

POTUS was more subdued while speaking at this event, though he hit many of his same themes. POTUS said he wanted a “more fair, more just” world. “We’ve made history in the past and we’re going to make history in the next seven weeks.”

Wearing a dark blue suit and light blue tie. Letterman said he looked great and immediately asked how much he weighed. The president responded that he weighs about 180 pounds, which prompted Letterman to say he weighs the same but doesn’t look so good. “You look good,” Obama replied. “You haven’t seen me naked,” Letterman said. Obama: “We’re going to keep it that way.”

POTUS laughed when Letterman asked he wanted to say something to the empty chair next to him.

Letterman asked about the Romney video. I don’t know what he was referring to.” “One of the things I learned as president is you represent the entire country.” “If you want to be president, you have to work for everyone.” ‘All of us make mistakes…What people want to know though is you’re not writing off a big chunk of the country because the way our democracy works…This is a big country.” Obama said traveling the country he never meets anyone ”who doesn’t believe in the American dream.”

Asked about the violence in Libya last week that led to the death of Ambassador Christopher Stevens, Obama said the administration’s top priorities now are to “refortify” security at American embassies abroad and to bring the murderers to justice. He criticized the offending anti-Muslim video that triggered the violence, but he said the video was not an excuse for violence. The message we have to send,I think, to the Muslim world is, we expect you to work with us to keep our people safe. And as offensive as this video was , and obviously, we denounced it, and the united states government had nothing to do with it, that’s never an excuse for violence. And in this part of the region, as they emerge, into a new form of government, part of what they’re going to have to do is to recognize that democracy is not just casting a ballot, it’s respecting freedom of speech and tolerating people with different points of view, and it means that you’ve got to make sure that you never have any excuses for the kind of violence against innocents we saw last week, and that’s a message that I’ve sent very clearly to the leaders of various countries, and we expect their full cooperation, because that’s the only way the international order works.”