CNN Guest: Obama ‘Shrewd’ in Handling Perry on Border Crisis

After President Barack Obama had what he termed a “constructive” meeting with Texas Governor Rick Perry about the border crisis last night, New York Times congressional reporter Jonathan Martin told CNN’s Inside Politics Thursday morning that Obama had “shrewdly” handled what could have been an awkward or politically messy meeting by using Perry as a “lever” against the GOP.

“The president, I thought, was very shrewd in using the opportunity to visit with Governor Perry to say, ‘Tell your party to give me the money,'” Martin said. “And then to follow up with that, saying, ‘I can’t just act alone here. The entire rap against me by your party is the fact that that’s what I do.'”

RELATED: Obama Defends Decision Not to Visit Border: ‘This Isn’t Theater’

“So he’s trying to go through the Congress and it was smart of him yesterday to sort of use Governor Perry as a lever to try to rally the Republicans to give him the money to address the issue,” Martin said.

Obama has called for an extra $3.8 billion to handle the crisis, a request resisted by some congressional Republicans.

Watch the clip below, via CNN:

[Image via screengrab]

——
>> Follow Evan McMurry (@evanmcmurry) on Twitter

New: The Mediaite One-Sheet "Newsletter of Newsletters"
Your daily summary and analysis of what the many, many media newsletters are saying and reporting. Subscribe now!