Pocatello City Councilman Jim Johnston said he was awestruck as President Donald Trump walked within 2 feet of him on Tuesday afternoon.

Johnston was one of 150 business owners from across the country who were invited to the East Wing of the White House to watch the president deliver a speech about the economy and its impact on small businesses.

“Last week, I received a call from Sen. Jim Risch’s office and I was asked if I wanted to go to the White House and meet the president,” Johnston said. “Without hesitation, I said yes.”

Johnston didn’t get a chance to meet with Trump, who gave an approximate 12-minute speech about the nation’s economic progress.

However, Johnston said he reveled in sitting in the second row right behind multiple well-known White House staffers, including Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Chief of Staff John Kelly and Counselor to the President Kellyanne Conway. Not too far away was Risch, who was sitting next to Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida.

Trump’s daughter, Ivanka, and Linda McMahon, the administrator of the Small Business Administration, were by the president’s side.

Johnston spoke in-depth with Conway, who told the Pocatello City Councilman about several people she knew in Idaho.

“Here am I, just a little farm boy from Idaho, and I was just in awe of all the people around me,” Johnston said.

After the speech was over, Johnston went back to his hotel, where he saw himself on CNN and Fox News during news reports of Trump’s speech.

However, this wasn’t the first time Johnston has been invited to the White House to meet a U.S. president.

As the student body president during his time at the University of Idaho in the 1960s, he was invited to meet Lyndon Johnson. Johnston said he had dinner with Johnson, who had just announced a new White House Fellows Program.

Approximately two decades later, Johnston was asked back to the White House again, this time meeting Ronald Reagan.

During these two meetings, Johnston said he developed interesting impressions of both Johnson and Reagan. For example, the meeting with Johnson occurred during a standing dinner, and Johnston thought it was odd how the president stood there holding his dinner plate close to his chin, shoveling the food into his mouth.

“I didn’t think it was very presidential,” Johnston laughs.

However, Johnston said that after seeing Trump speak in person, he has a very positive impression of the current president.

“I’m always pessimistic about people in high office,” he said. “But I came away feeling that Donald Trump is a strong world leader, which is different from what’s been reported in the media.”

Johnston, who co-owns Johnston Property Management with his son, said Tuesday’s speech also reassured him as a small business owner that the Trump administration would pursue an economic policy that focuses on tax cuts, providing more education to the workforce and removing unnecessary regulations.

“Trump spoke about helping families through tax reform and creating a more equal tax code for everybody,” Johnston said. “I think he is talking about things that are resonating with small business people like me.”