Pat Dollard

Tweet

Barack Obama speaks to the media about the withdrawal of Commerce Secretary nominee Sen. Judd Gregg (R-NH) in the press cabin of Air Force One upon arriving in Springfield, Illinois

White House Caught Telling Differing Stories

Politico:

The White House again seemed caught off guard by nominee troubles on Thursday, when Judd Gregg’s statement announcing he’d withdrawn his bid for Commerce Secretary was met by conflicting responses and explanations from top officials of when and how the president learned the news.

While President Barack Obama and Tom Daschle offered a joint statement when the former majority leader withdrew his bid to join the cabinet, the administration’s first statement this time, from press secretary Robert Gibbs, came some 52 minutes after Gregg’s statement announcing his withdrawal.

Gibbs offered a relatively tough tone, suggesting the Republican Senator had not lived up to his end of the deal:

“Senator Gregg reached out to the President and offered his name for Secretary of Commerce. He was very clear throughout the interviewing process that despite past disagreements about policies, he would support, embrace, and move forward with the President’s agenda. Once it became clear after his nomination that Senator Gregg was not going to be supporting some of President Obama’s key economic priorities, it became necessary for Senator Gregg and the Obama administration to part ways. We regret that he has had a change of heart”.

That stood in contrast to the more conciliatory words quickly offered by chief of staff Rahm Emanuel—who said that Gregg met with the president in person on Wednesday after warning earlier in the week that he was having second thoughts about taking the position, and that “There is not hard feelings. It is better that it happened now than after the fact”—and by President Obama, who called Gregg a “good man” who “had a change of heart.”

Later, senior adviser David Axelrod told reporters traveling with Barack Obama in Peoria, Ill., that Obama found out about Gregg’s decision from Gregg’s press release – put out by the New Hampshire senator’s office at 4:10 p.m.

Asked why Gregg quit, Axelrod said only, “Life is complicated.”

“And strange,” chimed in Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, according to the pool report prepared by Christi Parsons of the Chicago Tribune.

But a short time later, Gibbs walked to the back of Air Force One to tell reporters that Axelrod misspoke about Obama learning about of the decision from the press release. “I don’t think that’s what he meant to say,” Gibbs said.

Gibbs said that Gregg had been expressing misgivings for several days.

Obama spoke to Gregg on the telephone Wednesday and was informed then that the senator was withdrawing himself from consideration, Gibbs said, according to a subsequent pool report.

Later Obama himself walked back to the press cabin and offered another explanation.

Obama said he talked to Gregg Wednesday and knew the nominee was having second thoughts – a conversation where one Democratic official said Obama tried to “talk Gregg down.”

But Obama said he didn’t know that Gregg had made up his mind until Thursday. He didn’t say how he found out, and didn’t answer a question about whether he learned of the decision from Gregg’s press release.

“I wasn’t sure whether he’d made a final decision” after speaking to Gregg Wednesday, the president said. Asked when he did find out, Obama said with a smile on Thursday, “Today.”

Gregg, meanwhile, told reporters that “I have obviously talked to the president. It would be highly inappropriate of me not to have talked to the president,” adding that “I gave them fair warning.”

He did not elaborate on what he said to the president, or about what, exactly, he gave them “fair warning.”