Rick Perry: “I was troubled today by the tone of the president…”

Rick Perry admitted at the RGA today that he was very troubled by Obama’s tone today addressing the National Governors Association:

I don’t mind telling you I was a bit troubled today by the tone of the president. …For the president of the United States to look Democrat and Republican governors in the eye and to say ‘I do not trust you to make decisions in your state about issues of education, about transportation infrastructure…’ – that is really troubling.

Perry went on to say that Obama was going to hollow out the National Guard and warned the state governors not to push back against it or they would hear from him:

Democrat Governors are very concerned, I will suggest to you, about what they heard today about the Guard. I left the United States Air Force in the mid ‘70s, in February of 1977, as our country was going through a similar period of time of reducing the force. But those men and women who had extraordinary expertise in combat were going into the Guard and into the Reserves.

I hope 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 “if I hear any of you pushing back, making statements about Washington spends too much money, you’ll hear from me.”

If I’m a Democrat governor, if I’m a Republican governor, I’m highly offended by that.

Yes it is our duty to defend the people of this country. But I will suggest that making a political statement about the Guard is not in the best long-term interest of this country and it’s certainly not in the best long-term interest of those men and women who have committed and often times sacrificed greatly for this country.

Watch the clip for more:


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