GOP Governors accused Barack Obama of making politically motivated cuts to their states’ National Guard funding.
TIME reported:
Republican governors are accusing President Barack Obama of making politically motivated cuts to their states’ National Guard funding.
Speaking to reporters after a meeting between the President and the National Governors Association, the GOP governors said they were deeply troubled by Obama’s tone when asked about planned cuts to the National Guard. South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley said Obama became ”aggressive” and that his tone “chilled the room quite a bit.”
“He basically said, ‘Many people in this room have asked for cuts, and now you getting ’em,’” Haley said at a news conference across from the White House at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, adding that her husband, a guardsman, just returned from a yearlong deployment to Afghanistan.
She said Obama was trying to “punish all these people who are asking for debt reduction by cutting the National Guard. It’s just not a logical way to do things.”
Texas Governor Rick Perry echoed Haley’s remarks, saying, “I hope that we’re not about to make a tragic mistake in this country by hollowing out our guard in our states in some political statement of ‘you’re all going to feel the pain,’ because that’s certainly what I heard from the President of the United States today.”
“As a matter of fact, he said in that meeting, he said, ‘If I hear any of you pushing back, making statements about Washington spends too much money, you will hear from me,’” Perry recounted.
White House press secretary Jay Carney declined to respond directly to the GOP characterization.