The President and the Texas governor, who have taken public shots at one another before, won’t cross paths during Obama’s visit to the Lone Star State. But each camp says it was the other’s choice. From today’s White House press gaggle aboard Air Force One:
Q Why is the President not meeting with Governor Perry?
MR. CARNEY: Governor Perry turned down our invitation to meet the President at the airport.
Q He wanted a more substantial meeting and didn’t want to have to go 800 miles all the way to El Paso to discuss the wildfires and border security and all that.
MR. CARNEY: Again, we invited him to meet with the President and he declined the invitation. We have also in the past offered him a National Security Council briefing on immigration; he declined that as well.
Perry’s office, meanwhile, says it requested a brief meeting with Obama, perhaps on the tarmac in Austin, before the President heads down to El Paso, but that the White House said Obama didn’t have time.