President Joe Biden and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) putting their differences aside to underscore their billion-dollar infrastructure bill is a temporary ceasefire between the pair before normal hostilities resume ahead of the 2024 elections.
But McConnell’s appearance alongside Biden in his home state of Kentucky is in stark contrast not only to the House Republican speakership impasse but also his previous partisanship toward Biden’s old boss, former President Barack Obama.
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Democrats demonized McConnell after he promised to make Obama a “one-term president” and prevented now-Attorney General Merrick Garland from becoming a Supreme Court justice.
But similar to how former President George W. Bush’s standing has improved among Democrats after former President Donald Trump, McConnell has become a valued ally for Democrats post-Trump and amid the House Republican pandemonium, at least for now.
To be clear, McConnell has criticized Biden for his economic and immigration policies as well as his chaotic and deadly withdrawal from Afghanistan. But Biden and McConnell do have a record of cutting deals “when no one else could,” most notably during Obama’s administration, according to Republican strategist Cesar Conda.
“Sen. McConnell is the most effective Republican leader I’ve seen because he understands how to get things done and deliver for Kentucky, for Senate Republicans, and for the conservative movement,” Conda, a former chief of staff to Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) and founding partner of consulting firm Navigators Global, told the Washington Examiner.
Democratic strategist Jim Manley, too, is more critical of House Republicans than McConnell. Manley, former communications director to then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and an International Advisory Council APCO Worldwide member, is not the only one cognizant of McConnell’s political strengths. McConnell’s favorable rating, for instance, has increased by 9 percentage points, 16% to 25%, since the start of Biden’s presidency in January 2021, according to Economist-YouGov polling. The senator’s unfavorability has decreased by 6 points, from 69% to 63%, during the same period.
Manley joked McConnell, who this week became the longest-serving Senate leader, can “see the future” and “knows it doesn’t include House Republicans,” collaborating with Democrats most recently on Biden’s $1.7 trillion government funding measure.
“He is doing what he thinks he needs to do to protect his caucus,” he said.
A federal debt ceiling fight is the most predictable challenge facing Biden and Congress this year, and Manley advised the White House to take advantage of any goodwill to avoid “a major disaster.”
“It’s difficult to look at what is happening in the [House] and then expect a governing coalition to rise out of the clown show that is the Republican caucus over there,” he added. “It depends in part on whether McConnell wants to put points on the board and allow some compromises to develop or not.”
For one Republican strategist, any future legislative cooperation is precarious given “there are still deep differences and divided control of Congress.”
“It’s unclear what is possible,” the source said. “We’ll have to see.”
Biden himself framed the Kentucky trip, promoting a $1.6 billion update to the Brent Spence Bridge between Covington, Kentucky, and Cincinnati, as sending “an important message” to the public that lawmakers “can work together” and “move the nation forward” if they “drop a little bit of our egos and focus on what is needed in the country.”
“Leader McConnell and I don’t agree on everything. In fact, we disagree on a lot of things,” he told the crowd. “But here’s what matters: He’s a man of his word. When he gives you his word, you can take it to the bank. You can count on it.”
Before Biden, McConnell described the $550 billion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act as a “legislative miracle,” conceding “these are really partisan times.” New Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) declined Biden’s invitation to attend the event, as did Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY).
“But I always feel no matter who gets elected, once it’s all over, we ought to look for things that we can agree on and try to do those even while we have big differences on other things,” McConnell said.
Biden and McConnell’s appearance took place as Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) failed to secure majority support in multiple House speakership votes.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre reiterated the administration is “going to let the process play out,” sidestepping questions on whether Biden and his aides are prepared for an extended speaker vacancy. But she did commend Biden’s attempts to address “the poison that has infected our politics” despite his own rhetoric.
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“The president is going to call out what he sees. Right? That is his job as a president,” she said.
