On Tuesday’s “Morning Joe” on MSNBC, co-hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski both took the side of Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX) for declining to greet President Barack Obama at the airport when he visits Texas for a fundraiser on Wednesday.
Perry released a statement declining the photo-op stating it did not provide an opportunity to discuss the border crisis, which was discussed on “Morning Joe.”
“What do you think about what he said?” Brzezinski said. “I actually don’t have a complete problem with his statement.
Scarborough acknowledged Perry had “the upper hand” and criticized Obama for not taking a more hands-on approach.
“Well, I don’t either,” Scarborough said. “At first blush when you hear a governor is not going to meet to shake hands on a tarmac, your immediate reaction is a negative one. You dig deeper into it and it actually looks like it’s the president that just wants the photo-op. He just wants the quick and easy handshake, when he has Democrats in his own party saying, ‘There is, in fact, a humanitarian crisis on the border’ and talking about Katrina moments.”
“Then at that point it looks like Rick Perry does have the upper hand when he’s saying basically the same thing Democratic congressmen from the state saying, ‘This requires more than a photo-op. This requires more than a handshake,” Scarborough continued. “This requires more than looking out from 30,000 feet from your plane. Of course the optics of it are not that great Mark Halperin because he is going down there and holding two fundraisers but not visiting the scene of a humanitarian crisis.”
(h/t Hot Air)
Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor
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