President Obama Calls Muhammad Ali 'One of a Kind'

— -- President Obama called Muhammad Ali "one of a kind," remembering the late fighter for supporting him during his political campaigns in a video posted to Facebook today.

The video begins in the Oval Office with an empty Resolute desk, until Obama walks into the frame. After speaking off the cuff for three minutes about Ali’s impact on the world, the president takes the camera into his private dining room off the Oval Office.

There, he shows a collector’s edition of “Goat: A Tribute to Muhammad Ali.” A used copy sells for $2,275 on Amazon, while new copies go for $7,000. But Obama received his copy as a gift from Ali himself.

He explains that he usually keeps the book in the White House residence, but brought it down to show off. “What I learned was that he really was rooting for me the whole time that I was running for the U.S. Senate, running for the presidency,” Obama says.

The president also presents a pair of boxing gloves that Ali autographed, “To Barack.” Obama cracks that sometimes he has to “slug it out here in Washington. “There were times when I got beat up a little bit,” he says.

At the end of the video, the president sends a message not just to Ali’s fans, but also his family: “He was one of a kind.”

Senior advisor Valerie Jarrett will attend Ali's funeral in Louisville on Friday and will read a letter from President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama, who cannot attend due to their daughter's high school graduation.