wayne slater from the dallas morning news. politically, chuck -- let me go into more details here. tomorrow president obama travels to texas where he'll attend fund raise rs and meet with rick perry of texas to discuss the crisis is. today, the president announced plans for a border security surge. in a letter to congress asking for nearly $4 billion to combat the flood of unaccompanied children pouring over the border the president writes, quote, this funding would support a sustained border security surge. his request includes money for more resources for border patrol agents, more immigration judges, torchbearers and prosecutors, funds to address the root charges of migration from countries like el salvador, honduras and gut mall and working with central american companies in part to combat misinformation campaigns to lure people to our border. in a letter to the president last month, speaker boehner outlined his solution which looks a lot like what the president is asking for now. boehner's solution included more resources for border control agent as including national guard as

let me go to wayne slater.strikes me is he's trying to off set the fact that he looked soft in the last election. the children who were brought here illegally to texas, he was proposing that they get in-state tuition which is a great deal for a family of modest means. you know it, i know it. i got in-state tuition at a college once. is this just to make him look mr. tough? >> he's got a perry problem and a republican problem. frankly, i think yesterday's announcement was a sweet spot where he dealt with both of them on political terms. the problem was last time he ran for president some on the far right, the tea party thought he was much too soft on immigration. so he was able to suggest that now i want to toughen up the border. it's a good thing to project. the particular republican problem is -- and i think perry threaded the needle well. on the one hand they want to look tough on the border but they don't want to look mean in a way. by saying i will put a bunch of military on the border, he's lifting himself

. >> and here he is, wayne slater, senior political writer at the "dallas morning news." nice to have you back, wayne. >> great to be with you. >> okay. so far let's not even go there and talk about any potential trip to the border. let's focus with you, right, on this meeting this evening between president obama and governor perry. what do you know? is it just the two of them? how much time is allotted, where will this meeting take place? >> at the moment, here's what's planned. the president has invited the governor of texas, who said we want to talk about immigration, to a round table discussion, with a county commissioner and some other faith leaders and business leaders in dallas. there is no private one-on-one that we have heard about from the white house, they're pretty tight-lipped about it. this gives the president the opportunity to say, look, i invited the guy to come, it gives perry an opportunity to talk about it in front of other people if he wants to. it's not the ideal situation for either of them. but frankly, if they both want to talk about immigration, t

. >> joining me now is senior writer for politico glenn tlesh and wayne slater. glen, does the white house think that congress is going to give them $4 billion, which one should note is twice the amount circulated in the news last week? >> i think eventually they think this is going to happen but i have to say, alex, they just didn't seem to be prepared for this. they got caught flat footed. the whole distracting argument whether or not obama will go down to the border has really blindsided them. i find in general they don't have a lack of answers. they are really in sluggish second term mode on this. and i think it will ult timatel hurt them. >> how did that happen? if you talk to people in the white house, we have known about this, the media may have clued into it a couple of months ago but we've known it for a long time and been on it from the president on down. how did they get caught flat footed where the wind should be in their sails? >> the last thing you just said is the key. they've gotten arrogant about owning this issue. they love the numbers. was it 6

joining us now is wayne slater, senior political writer for the "dallas morning news." thank you for being here. >> great to be with you. >> the timing of the attorney general's opinion raises questions in terms of its connection to campaign donations. it also raises questions about its connection and timing to the campaign. he's running for governor. does he think he's done something that was just a political asset, or is this something he was hoping no one would notice? >> i think it's something that he figured that nobody would really notice. and it wasn't until wfaa asked for an update on the information that we suddenly realized that a state agency was saying after years of providing this information, no, we're not going to provide it anymore. greg abbott has issued an opinion that says it's no longer available. and in an odd way, it is a perfect message to corporate, business, and other supporters of greg abbott. his campaign contributors and others. to say privately, or maybe somewhat more quietly, look, i'm on your side, we're not going to be loading you down wi