WASHINGTON — Mitt Romney’s lunch meeting with President Barack Obama is not an audition for any post in the administration, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said.
Obama “doesn’t have a specific assignment in mind” for Romney, Carney told reporters Wednesday, a day before the president will meet the man he defeated earlier this month.
Carney said Obama was looking to the lunch to get Romney’s perspective on actions “that could make the federal government work better.” Obama has been seeing congressional authority to reorganize the executive branch to streamline various departments dealing with businesses and job creation — a task Romney was seen as a long-shot candidate to undertake.
“It will be a substantial lunch, if not on the plate, then in discussion,” Carney said, adding that it will be just the two men in the room, with no aides.
White House Correspondent Association President Ed Henry asked Carney to reconsider their decision to bar cameras from the meeting, but the press secretary refused.
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