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Published December 23, 2015
UPDATE:
New details from the Perry camp:
The call was late Wednesday afternoon. Governor Perry had spoken with Secretary Napolitano on Tuesday and they set up the call with the president. They ONLY talked about the fires. Perry wanted to make sure that the new fires were added to the presidential disaster declaration already in place. He also want to ask that any Department of Defense assets like bulldozers, that were already in Texas would be made available for the fires.
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On Wednesday President Obama called Governor Rick Perry, R-Texas, to discuss the fires going on in the Lone Star State.
The White House gave a readout of the call, saying that Obama called to share with Perry his concern for the citizens of Texas, and offered condolences for the lives lost from the blaze. He also said federal assistance from DHS, FEMA and the U.S. Forest Service will continue to be made available to them.
Nearly 800 homes have been lost in the devastating fires and at least two people have died.
Perry, who is also a presidential candidate, took part in a candidate forum on Monday in South Carolina, but had to cut his stop short to return to Texas and deal with the fires.
And while the majority of the conversation with Obama was likely on the very serious problems facing Texas, this is one phone call that probably every political journalist in the country would have liked to listen in on.
The governor has surged to the top of the polls in a short amount of time and all eyes are in his performance Wednesday night in the POLITICO/NBC News debate at the Reagan Library in California.
The debate also happens to be at the exact time the White House had wanted for Obama's big speech to a joint session of Congress on job creation, but they had to move after Boehner rejected his request and asked for it to be Thursday.
When asked whether the president would be watching the debate, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney didn't know, saying he hadn't asked the president.
Fox News' Lexi Stemple contributed to this report.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/president-obama-calls-rick-perry-to-talk-about-texas-fires