“I think it should be a productive session.”ĭespite that positive spin, a war of words has broken out between Obama, who has pledged to using his executive authority to fix the immigration system, and his Republican opponents, who have said they will fiercely oppose any unilateral action. “It would be a real shame to go straight to gridlock,” White House chief of staff Denis McDonough told NPR in a preview of the meeting, hinting that bourbon might be served in a nod to McConnell’s home state of Kentucky. Since the crushing electoral defeats suffered by Obama’s party on Tuesday, the White House has sought hard to portray the president as open to compromise with his Republican opponents. “The one thing that I committed to both speaker Boehner and leader McConnell is that I’m not going to judge ideas based on whether they’re Democratic or Republican, I’m going to be judging them based on whether or not they work,” Obama said. The Republican speaker of the House, John Boehner, who is expected to command the largest GOP majority in that chamber for over half a century, was also present with his deputies. They included the outgoing Democratic majority leader, Harry Reid, who is soon to be replaced as the country’s most powerful senator by Republican Mitch McConnell. The lunch meeting was also expected to include frank discussions on a host of topics over which Republicans and Democrats have trenchant disagreements, from the Keystone XL pipeline and the Affordable Care Act to immigration reform.Īt the start of Friday’s meeting, Obama and his vice-president, Joe Biden, were flanked by 13 congressional leaders from both parties, according to the pool report. In remarks before the lunch, Obama suggested discussions would include the economy, the world Ebola crisis and military operations against the Islamic State (Isis) jihadist group.
Republican control of both congressional chambers doesn’t begin until January, but the repercussions of the party’s victories in this week’s midterms is already being felt in Washington, particularly in the White House, where Obama is preparing for two years of isolation. They’d like to see more cooperation and I think all of us have a responsibility, me in particular, to try to make that happen.” “What we’ve seen now for a number of cycles is that the American people just want to see work done here in Washington,” Obama said, according to a pooled report.
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