President Joe Biden and a subset of House Republicans are like often-quarreling spouses in an arranged marriage. Neither would have chosen the other as a partner, but now stuck together, they can use each other for their own ends.
In the 118th Congress, Biden has a Democratic Senate to work with. But he faces a Republican majority, albeit a narrow one with a 222-213 edge over Democrats.
CONGRESSIONAL REBUKE AND LOOMING BIDEN VETO CEMENT ESG AS MAJOR POLITICAL CONFLICT
The Biden White House has its eye on 18 House Republicans who hold seats where, under the lines now in place from the last round of redistricting, the president in 2020 would have beaten former President Donald Trump, ranging from a bare 0.1% Biden edge over Trump in the southeastern Arizona and eastern Tucson area 6th Congressional District to what would have been a whopping 12.4% win in California’s 27th District, represented by GOP Rep. Mike Garcia, covering Lancaster, Palmdale, and Santa Clarita in northern Los Angeles County.
These Republican lawmakers won’t want to stray too far right with their 2024 reelection bids in mind, Biden administration officials figure. So, there may be room to work together on some pieces of legislation, most urgently, a solution to the current impasse over raising the nation’s debt ceiling. House Republicans, led by Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), argue the nation’s credit card spending limit should only be raised if paired with spending cuts to make a dent in the record $31 trillion national debt. The Biden administration rejects that approach, saying it won’t negotiate since the money’s already been spent.
But leverage goes both ways, and House Republicans in Biden districts know they’re in positions to potentially extract concessions for their favored issues — only, that is, if Biden and his team are willing to play ball, which is where problems come in up and down Pennsylvania Avenue, as House Republicans say it’s been woefully insufficient.
The White House has exuded confidence in Biden and his aides’ ability to continue collaborating with Republicans now that the GOP controls the House. To that end, the White House has underscored its outreach to freshman House Republicans, the 18 GOP lawmakers who represent districts the president would have won in 2020, and members who supported the bipartisan infrastructure bill and gun reform legislation to last year’s omnibus government funding bill. But in conversations with the Washington Examiner, Republicans, including Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE), are urging the White House to do “a lot better.”
Bacon, whose district covers the greater Omaha area, acknowledged the White House had extended invitations to him for “a couple” of functions, such as bill signings. But Bacon, whose district in 2020 would have voted for Biden over Trump 52.2% to 45.8%, criticized the president for only meeting with McCarthy “twice in two years.”
“I do appreciate I have a number I can call when we need it, but what I see from Joe Biden, primarily, has been ‘My way or the highway,'” Bacon said. “I remember on the [American Rescue Plan] bill and inflation reduction bill, in both cases, I was specifically told, ‘We don’t want your input. We don’t need your vote.'”
“In other words, all that fancy spending was pretty much Democrat-only, and now they want our help on the debt limit,” he added. “They’re going to have to meet us partway.”
Both Biden and McCarthy are now amenable to meeting to discuss the debt ceiling after the country maxed out its $31.4 trillion-limit spending limit, with the Treasury Department using accounting tricks to get by. The White House remains adamant the Treasury Department‘s borrowing cap should be increased without conditions. But the president and his aides had been scrutinized for repeating that they would not negotiate with Republicans over potential cuts.
“Bipartisanship isn’t caving to someone’s demands,” said a spokeswoman for Rep. Young Kim (R-CA), who represents the eastern Orange County 40th District, where Biden would have beaten Trump 49.9% to 48%.
“It’s both sides coming to the table and working to find common ground for the good of the American people,” said the spokeswoman for Kim.
A spokesman for Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer (R-OR), who last year flipped the southern Portland suburbs and central Oregon 5th District, which had been held by Rep. Kurt Schrader (D-OR) for more than a decade in a slightly different configuration before redistricting, added that “divided government demands some degree of cooperation between parties — but she won’t hesitate to push back when necessary.”
The other problem for Biden and McCarthy is whether the Republican can negotiate on behalf of his conference after that fractious speakership display.
Bacon also complained about Biden’s partisan rhetoric, particularly the president’s dismissal of anti-abortion lawmakers as “MAGA Republicans.” Meanwhile, the White House cites near abortion bans as examples of the political “extremism” Biden promised to condemn.
“I just took it as a slap in the face to anybody of faith,” Bacon said. “A lot of these people were pro-life way before [former President Donald Trump]. I find the things [Biden] says offensive and belittling. … He doesn’t make it easy to want to work with [him]. But as an American serving in Congress, we got to do what’s right for the country.”
A spokesman for a border state House Republican freshman compared the White House’s outreach to lobbyists leaving their business cards with his member’s office. He noted, too, that Biden’s reception for first-years was not well attended by GOP lawmakers.
The spokesman emphasized that his boss would not “always be a roadblock” for the White House. But he downplayed speculation that impeaching Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, for instance, would sour relations with Biden and his aides.
“Mayorkas has to go, and how that happens, the sooner he’s gone, the better,” the spokesman said. “This was something that [my member] campaigned on. I think they should be aware that border security is a top priority for him. And I don’t think anyone should be surprised that he’s going to take that seriously.”
A Republican familiar with McCarthy’s relationship with Biden recalled it as “decent” during Biden’s vice presidency in the Obama administration when the California Republican rose from chief deputy whip to House minority leader.
“They would meet for breakfast with other members at the Naval Observatory,” the source said of the vice president’s official residence in a leafy neighborhood of northwest Washington, D.C. “McCarthy, there, pushed for Javelins for Ukraine but was unsuccessful, as [former President Barack] Obama ended up blocking them.”
McCarthy has framed his House majority as an important component of a government system compromising checks and balances.
“It’s time for Congress to be a check and provide some balance to this president’s policies,” McCarthy said during his acceptance speech after winning the speaker’s gavel in the wee hours of Saturday, Jan. 7, the culmination of 15 ballots and three and a half days of voting by lawmakers.
One month into Republican control, House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY) has already expressed frustrations with a perceived lack of transparency from the White House, not only regarding classified documents from Biden’s vice presidency and Senate tenure found at his Washington, D.C., think tank and his Wilmington, Delaware, home, but additionally his deadly withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan, the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the border and fentanyl crises.
“The White House Counsel is telling Chairman Comer that they will review the questions he’s asked to determine if his requests are ‘legitimate oversight,’” a House Oversight Committee spokeswoman said in a recent statement of the White House’s insistence the panel act in “good faith.” “This is not ‘legitimate’ transparency from President Biden who once claimed he’d have the most transparent administration in history.”
House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul (R-TX) is slightly more circumspect despite the controversy surrounding prospective member Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN).
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“With a small Republican majority in the House and a Democrat-controlled Senate, I think Republicans and Democrats will be forced to work together even more than before,” he told the Washington Examiner. “I am willing to work with Democrats, including President Biden, to get things accomplished this Congress.”
The 18 House Republicans sitting in Biden-won seats have even more incentive to achieve cooperation with the Biden White House, even if it means putting away the arguing and bickering for a while.
