Gov. Ned Lamont asked President Donald Trump one of the only questions at a high-profile White House meeting on Friday with a group of bipartisan governors. The question happened behind closed doors after Trump asked reporters to leave the room, minutes into the start of the business meeting. “That way we’re going to talk very candidly and take questions at the end,” Trump said. That gave Lamont his opening to press the president on his surge of federal agents in cities like Minneapolis that’s part of Trump’s immigration crackdown. And the governor seemed surprised by the answer he got: There won’t be a surge in agents from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement without a request from a city. “I just said, ‘Look, whatever success you maybe felt you had down at the border, securing the border, how was Minneapolis a learning lesson for you? That mass deportation is really changing the tone,” Lamont said in an interview with the Connecticut Mirror as he wrapped up a meeting with other New England governors. “He said something very interesting. He said, ‘I’ll tell you, I appreciate that question,’ which I was happy he said that. I didn’t know how he was going to react,” Lamont said. “And he said, ‘I’ll tell you what we learned. We’re not going to send ICE into any cities that don’t ask for it.'” The White House said Trump was referring specifically to surges of federal agents and that ICE operations will continue across the country. The administration recently announced the wind-down of the surge in Minneapolis following the fatal shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti. “The president was talking about the public safety surges like we’ve seen in Memphis, New Orleans, and D.C. ICE operations will continue in all states as normal to remove dangerous criminal illegal aliens from American communities,” a White House official said. Lamont was in Washington, D.C., on Thursday and Friday for the National Governors Association winter meetings, a traditionally bipartisan affair, but confusion over whether Democratic governors were invited to the White House business meeting as well as a dinner on Saturday night caused some discontent. The governor ultimately decided to attend Friday’s meeting but is opting out of the dinner, given that a couple of Democratic governors were excluded. But he described the tone of Friday’s event as “much more conventional than it was last year.” At last year’s White House meeting, Lamont was sitting at the same table with Maine Gov. Janet Mills when she clashed with Trump over his executive order aimed at driving transgender athletes from women’s and girls’ sports. “I challenged him on ICE in Minneapolis, and you’re never quite sure how he’s going to respond. He said, ‘That’s a fair question,'” Lamont said. “I think the tone this year was very different than last year.” When asked if he felt confident that Trump wouldn’t send a surge of federal agents to cities in Connecticut unless asked, Lamont acknowledged the fluidity of the president’s thinking. “Based upon today, yes. Tomorrow’s another day, right?” Lamont said. “That’s what he said today. Sometimes things change.” “Let’s say he’s just totally a political animal. You look at what came out of Minneapolis, and he says, ‘I’m not going to let that happen again. Look what’s going on with my ratings,'” Lamont said. “Be that as it may, it was a learning lesson, and he implied that he had learned a lot from that.” After his question, someone ran up to give Trump a note about the stunning rebuke by the U.S. Supreme Court against the president’s tariff policy. “I thought his hair was going to go on fire. That was the 6-3 decision on tariffs,” Lamont quipped. Lamont said he took one more question from another Democratic governor, Josh Stein of North Carolina, about flooding in the state. The rest of the governor’s trip was filled with meetings with Trump cabinet officials, including the heads of the energy, interior and transportation departments. Some of those conversations revolved around electricity pricing as well as the future of Revolution Wind. He also met with Dr. Mehmet Oz, the administrator of the Centers for Medicare Medicaid Services, whose agency gave Connecticut a rural health grant. “I mean, they can pull the plug on multibillion-dollar projects,” Lamont said, referring to the administration’s threat to rescind funding for transportation projects in neighboring states. “So it’s not bad to sometimes say thank you.” ...read more read less