Incoming Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is “not opposed” to negotiating with President Obama, he said in an interview with CNN that aired Sunday, and expressed eagerness to work with the president to find a middle ground in the coming year.
“Now he needs to talk to us,” McConnell said. “And that’s good, because when the American people elect a divided government, they’re not saying they don’t want anything done. What they are saying is, they want things done in the political center, things that both sides can agree on. We talk about the things where there may be some agreement.”
Indeed, the White House has begun to indicate that President Obama will take less of a go-it-alone approach in 2015 and attempt to work with and through the Republican-led Congress to achieve his policy goals. Republican leaders, like McConnell, have so far expressed optimism that such collaboration will yield some breakthroughs.
Although McConnell said prior to 2012 that he hoped to make Obama “a one-term president,” McConnell noted to CNN that both he and the president “came up short.”
“I had hoped to make him a one-term president and he had hoped to defeat me last fall,” McConnell said. “I think what the American people are saying is they want us both to still be here. They want us to look for things to agree on and see if we can make some progress for the country.”
Whether Republican leaders will be able to compromise with the president might hinge on the temperament of some of the more conservative congressional lawmakers, many of whom have lashed out at their party leaders for past deals, such as the spending agreement reached in Congress last month that left the president’s executive action on immigration untouched.
When asked by CNN whether he would work to please restless conservative Republicans or take a more moderate tack, McConnell split the difference.
“Look, we need to do both,” McConnell said. “We need to look for areas where we can make some progress for the country, and obviously to do that we’re going to need some Democratic senators … and we’re going to need the president of the United States.”
“There are other areas where we’re not going to agree,” McConnell added. “What I hope Senate Republicans will present to the country is a conservative right-of-center governing majority, serious people elected in serious times to try to get results.”
