Tensions between the White House and Congressional Republicans have reached an all-time low, say Republicans, most of whom have not met with President Obama in years.
“I would say it’s as bad, or worse than I’ve ever seen it,” Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain, R-Ariz., told the Washington Examiner on Wednesday.
The acrimonious relationship has culminated in mutually-infuriating agendas. This week Republicans sent a letter to Iranian leaders warning them against negotiating a nuclear deal with Obama. Obama has openly mocked the GOP and promised to circumvent Republicans by using executive authority.
McCain said Obama’s relationship with Republicans worsened when the president began using his executive authority to move significant parts of his agenda that Republicans oppose.
Obama’s directive to allow millions of illegal immigrants to obtain work permits and some federal benefits, new Environmental Protection Agency regulations and most recently, a proposed nuclear deal with Iran, all without congressional approval, skirt the language of the Constitution, which grants Congress the sole authority to approve treaties, make laws and regulations, and create naturalization procedures.
“I think the president is disinterested in Congress generally and Republicans specifically,” Said Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., who is a former House Majority Leader. “And when you continue day in and day out, to act like the Congress doesn’t matter, the Congress eventually is going to do things that get your attention.”
On Monday, 47 Senate Republicans sent an open letter to Iranian leaders, warning that if the Senate does not sign off on a developing nuclear deal, the agreement won’t last beyond the Obama Administration.
The move infuriated the White House and led to Obama suggesting sarcastically that Republicans had aligned themselves with Iranian hard-liners.
With the gulf between the two sides now wider than ever, Republicans are planning legislation that would require Congress to approve of the nuclear deal with Iran.
Other Republicans are looking for ways to thwart the confirmation of Loretta Lynch, Obama’s nominee to succeed Attorney General Eric Holder.
Once considered on the fast track to confirmation, Lynch has been stalled by Senate Republicans for weeks, in part because of her declared support for Obama’s executive action granting work permits and federal benefits to millions of illegal immigrants.
She’s likely to be confirmed next week, thanks to new rules requiring only a simple majority to confirm most nominations, but she’ll clear the Senate with a shrinking number of Republicans supporting her because they believe she will help further tilt power to the president and away from Congress.
“We have a right not to confirm somebody who is going to put a bullet in our heart — the Congress’s heart,” Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., said. “I’m not aware of a greater erosion of congressional power in which Congress says if you are unlawful in the country you cannot be employed, and the president says, change that law and Congress says no, and then the president gives Social Security numbers, a photo ID, Medicare benefits to people who are here unlawfully.”
Aside from a meeting between Obama and GOP leaders in early November, 2014 and once again in January there has been almost no communication between the Republican leaders and the president, even though the Republicans now control both the House and Senate.
House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, spoke with Obama on the phone in February, a top aide told the Washington Examiner.
But for other key Republicans, including McCain, who now heads the Senate Armed Services Committee, it’s been years since Obama has reached out to them.
“I’ve been here a long time and I think it’s an estranged relationship,” Sen Richard Shelby, R-Ala., who arrived in the Senate in 1987 and switched from the Democratic party in 1994, said. “I’ve never seen it like this before. The president is going down one road and we think he’s going down the wrong road. I think the president doesn’t have much going on as well as a dialogue with Republicans in the Senate or House. And that’s not good.”
