Jan Brewer traded words with President Obama after she greeted him at a Phoenix airport Wednesday.
Brewer and Obama "spoke intensely for a few minutes" after he landed at Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport, according to a White House pool report. At one point, the GOP governor shook her finger at the president.
"He was a little disturbed about my book," Brewer told a reporter after the incident, referring to her political memoir, "Scorpions for Breakfast." In the book, Brewer depicted Obama as "patronizing" during an earlier meeting.
"I said to him that I have all the respect in the world for the office of the president," Brewer said. "The book is what the book is. I asked him if he read the book. He said he read the excerpt. So."
Brewer said Obama told her "that he didn't feel I had treated him cordially."
"I said I was sorry he felt that way but I didn't get my sentence finished," Brewer said. "Anyway, we're glad he's here. I'll regroup."
The last time Obama met with Brewer was June 2010, when the Arizona governor visited the Oval Office for a private, 30-minute encounter the White House called a "good meeting." At the time, Brewer said the meeting was "very cordial," but in her book she said Obama had been "condescending."
During Wednesday's encounter, Brewer handed Obama a handwritten letter asking him to sit down with her to discuss the "Arizona comeback."
"I thought we probably would've talked about the things that were important to him and important to me, helping one another," Brewer said of a potential meeting with the president. "Our country is upside down. Arizona was upside down. But we have turned it around. I know again that he loves this country and I love this country."
