That was a very odd thing for President Kennedy to say, given that he had invited Texas Governor Connally to the White House for a visit on October 4, 1963 to make plans for the Texas trip that Lyndon Johnson (who had not been invited to attend) had been pressing so hard for. JFK realized that he needed to have Connally's firm support for the trip, knowing that the Governor had for months resisted the idea of staking his own greater popularity in Texas to that of the president (or, for that matter, of LBJ, whose Texas support had been waning since he left the Senate and was wasting away in the Vice President's office — and at that moment, was being drawn into the biggest scandal of his career, centered on Senate investigations of his long-time bag-man and multiple fraudster Bobby Baker).

Vice President Johnson, for many months beginning in late 1962, had begun pressing Governor Connally and President Kennedy to arrange for a presidential tour of Texas as a pre-reelection campaign way to improve their standing in the polls. Connally stated as much in his 1978 testimony to the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA), explaining that he was then too busy campaigning for his own election to do it, but affirmed that it was Johnson who was behind it, though LBJ claimed that it was Kennedy who "needled" him to get it done (as can be heard at about the 7:00 minute mark on this video).