You've read 1 article this month

The goal of our journalism is neither balance nor objectivity but accuracy, fairness and a fundamental honesty with our readers and members at all times.

Want better media? Support a better media company

  • Reader-funded
  • Unionized
  • Mission-driven

McConnell: I Look Forward To Meeting With Obama, Eventually

Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY)
Start your day with TPM.
Sign up for the Morning Memo newsletter

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell took to the Senate floor today to praise the idea of a bipartisan summit at the White House, even as reports indicate that Republicans rebuffed President Obama’s plan to hold just such a meeting this week.

There will be plenty of time for bipartianship after the turkey is picked clean, McConnell said this morning.

“When we return from the Thanksgiving break, Republican and Democrat leaders will have the opportunity to discuss priorities with the President in a meeting at the White House,” he said. “I’m looking forward to that meeting, and to the opportunity to share with the President, again, the areas where we agree.”

McConnell said he and the president can find common ground on energy production (more nuclear power and more clean coal experiments) and growing jobs “through increased trade opportunities abroad.”

But when’s the best time to have that conversation? That’s a point of contention.

Last night, the White House abruptly announced that the long-anticipated “slurpee summit” between McConnell, House Republican Leader John Boehner, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Obama had been postponed. The purpose of the meeting, the White House kept saying, was to facilitate the kind of bipartisanship that Republicans set to storm Capitol Hill in January said they wanted.

After the postponement was announced by the White House, reports swirled that it was the Republicans who called it off, not the White House. As CNN’s Dana Bash explained last night, Republicans have been telling reporters “since last week” that they were maybe too busy to make it down Pennsylvania Avenue to have dinner (or a glass of Merlot for that matter) with the President.

Republicans said today that the change in date wasn’t a postponement so much as it it was a confusion about timing.

“When the date was first announced, members noted that this was organization/new member week and asked if another date was possible (that was Nov 3rd or 4th),” a “senior leadership aide” told the Huffington Post. The White House offered Nov. 30, “which worked for everyone,” the aide said.

Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said today that Obama wasn’t upset about the Republicans’ change of plans.

“We agreed it was inconvenient to have the meeting when it was originally happening,” Gibbs said, according to the Huffington Post. “We moved the date.”

And now, in the manner that only this city can, the concept of bipartisanship has been turned into a political football.

“With millions of ppl looking 4 work, there’s no time 2 waste,” Reid tweeted today. “My GOP colleagues should have accepted the President’s offer 2 meet this week.”

Watch Bash’s report here:

Latest DC
1
Show Comments
Masthead Masthead
Founder & Editor-in-Chief:
Executive Editor:
Managing Editor:
Deputy Editor:
Editor at Large:
General Counsel:
Publisher:
Head of Product:
Director of Technology:
Associate Publisher:
Front End Developer:
Senior Designer: