LANSING – Gov. Gretchen Whitmer says she made another pitch to President Donald Trump about fixing Michigan's roads when she sat next to him at a White House dinner for the nation's governors on Sunday night.

Whitmer told the Free Press on Tuesday she didn't get any commitments from Trump that will change the state budget she presents March 5, but she did get an acknowledgment of the importance of the Mitten State.

"I was at the president's table sitting next to him," and "he told me he handpicked who was at the table," Whitmer said.

"I chided him that Michigan was an important state. He said, 'You're right.' "

Whitmer, a Democrat, said she and Trump, a Republican who was seated immediately to her right, talked about "a variety of things," from roads and infrastructure, to the new United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement on trade, to the skills gap in education.

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But the discussion on roads was "very obtuse," Whitmer said, and she didn't take away any commitments from it.

"He reiterated his hope that Congress passes a package to sign into law," but "there wasn't much specificity," she said.

A Trump administration infrastructure plan released in February 2017 was criticized for lacking new direct federal spending and did not get a vote in Congress. Trump has not released a revised and more detailed plan since then.

On Monday, Trump mentioned his Sunday night discussion with Whitmer during a breakfast meeting with governors, who were in Washington, D.C., for the weekend-long winter meeting of the National Governors Association.

"We were just discussing — our great new governor of Michigan — last night, where you have some good news coming up very soon."

That was an apparent reference to a major Fiat Chrysler jobs announcement scheduled for Tuesday in Detroit.

As first reported Tuesday by the Michigan Advance, Whitmer told Trump on Sunday that the state had a good news announcement coming this week, but wouldn't tell him more out of fear that the president would announce the news prematurely, Whitmer spokeswoman Tiffany Brown said.

Trump "was very excited about it — he even alluded to it the next day at his press conference," Brown said.

Whitmer said she and Trump and Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, who was seated at the same table, also spent considerable time talking about water and the Great Lakes.

In mid-December, after the November election but before she was sworn in as governor, Whitmer, along with other governors-elect, met at the White House with Trump, his daughter Ivanka, and members of Trump's cabinet. At that time, Whitmer said she pushed for spending on roads and relief from tariffs hurting Michigan's auto and farm industries.

"I told (Trump) I got elected on fixing the damn roads," Whitmer said during a conference call with reporters following the meeting. Trump told her "he's anxious to get an infrastructure bill passed," she said.

Contact Paul Egan at 517-372-8660 or pegan@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @paulegan4. Staff writer Todd Spangler contributed to this report.