Perry to Obama: No to`tarmac handshake;’ yes to `thoughtful discussion’
Gov. Rick Perry Monday turned down what he characterized as President Obama’s offer for a “quick handshake on the tarmac” at Austin-Bergstrom Airport on Wednesday, but said he would juggle his schedule to accommodate a “substantive meeting” with the president on the border crisis any time during his two-day visit to Texas.
In a letter to the president, Perry wrote, “I appreciate the offer to greet you at Austin-Bergstrom Airport, but a quick handshake on the tarmac will not allow for a thoughtful discussion regarding the humanitarian and national security crises enveloping the Rio Grande Valley in South Texas. I would instead offer to meet with you at any time during your visit to Texas for a substantive meeting to discuss this critical issue. With the appropriate notice, I am willing to change my schedule to facilitate this request.”
“At any point while you are here, I am available to sit down privately so we can talk and you may directly gain my state’s perspective on the effects of an unsecured border and what is necessary to make it secure,” Perry wrote the president.
The governor has been among the president’s harshest critic as a rising tide of women and children, and unaccompanied children, mostly from Central America, have crossed the Texas border from Mexico - with more than 50,000 undocumented young people arriving in the United States since October.
More at http://www.statesman.com/news/news/state-regional-govt-politics/perry-to-obama-no-totarmac-handshake-yes-to-though/ngbBt/ .
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