Jindal’s comments, Malloy says, strayed from the NGA's civil discourse during the week. | AP Photos Jindal, Malloy tangle outside W.H.

A group of governors emerged midday Monday from a meeting with President Barack Obama that stressed bipartisan cooperation — but that sentiment didn’t last as far as the White House driveway, as a Republican who’s had bigger political aspirations offered a tough assessment of what he’d heard.

“This president and the White House seems to be waving the white flag of surrender” by focusing on a limited set of executive actions, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal told reporters outside the White House, breaking from the comity of the first dozen minutes of a press conference led by National Governors Association chair Mary Fallin (R-Okla.) and vice-chair John Hickenlooper (D-Colo.) — and from typically more innocuous readouts describing nearly all meetings as “productive.”


The president spoke repeatedly about raising the minimum wage during his meetings with more than 40 of the nation’s governors, Jindal said — but, argued the Louisiana governor, that’s the wrong place for the White House to be focusing its energies. “The Obama economy is now the minimum wage economy. I think we can do better than that, I think America can do better than that,” said the potential 2016 presidential candidate, suggesting that the president approve the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline, rein in regulations and expand drilling on federal lands to boost economic growth.

( PHOTOS: Bobby Jindal’s career)

After Jindal veered toward partisan territory, Gov. Dannel Malloy (D-Conn.) chimed in to clarify — and to chastise a bit. “Until a few moments ago we were going down a pretty cooperative road,” he said to some nervous laughs from some in the crowd. “So let me just say that we don’t all agree that moving Canadian oil through the United States is necessarily the best thing for the United States economy.”

Many of those who attended the NGA’s weekend conclave in Washington and Monday’s session with the president, Malloy added, support raising the minimum wage and other priorities that Obama laid out. And, he said, Jindal’s comments strayed from the civil discourse that dominated the weekend. “There are differences here, and you just heard what I think ended up being the most partisan statement that we had all weekend,” said Malloy.

“I don’t know what the heck was a reference to white flag when it comes to people making $404 a week. I mean, that’s the most insane statement I’ve ever heard, quite frankly,” he said. “So let’s be very clear that we’ve had a great meeting and we didn’t go down that road and it just started again and we didn’t start it,” he added, before walking away from the scrum of reporters and cameras.

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Jindal cut in with a response. If his earlier statements were the most partisan thing Malloy heard all weekend, “I want to make sure he hears a more partisan statement”: that if Obama really wants to grow the economy, he should delay the Affordable Care Act mandates.

“We think we can grow the economy. We think we can do better than the minimum wage economy,” he said, wrapping up his rebuttal.

Fallin, who started the press conference, then retook the microphone to cut off the back-and-forth. “As you have heard, there are issues we do agree, issues we agree to disagree,” she said.

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Dannel Malloy