This is the first time the two leaders of the House and Senate have come to the White House to meet with the president and vice president.
On the day that he led the mission to oust Rep. Liz Cheney from her leadership role and just a week after Senator Mitch McConnell remarked that “One-hundred percent of our focus is on stopping this new administration,” the two Republicans sat face to face with President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and their Democratic counterparts, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Senator Majority Leader Chuck Schumer.
The president has made it his mission to try to reach across the aisle and the image projected from this meeting is a big sign of that. The president said the meeting was set to discuss “policy areas of mutual agreement.” Before reporters were asked to leave the room, Biden said:
“We’re going to talk a lot about infrastructure today to see if there’s any way we can reach a compromise that gets the people’s work done and is within the bounds of everyone agreeing,”
The gathering lasted 90 minutes. While no compromise was reached most of the participants seemed to think it was positive. After it wrapped Rep. Kevin McCarthy called the meeting productive saying, “I think there’s an opportunity that we could work together on infrastructure.”
McConnell wasn’t as upbeat. He seemed to be completely inflexible when it comes to taxes, calling it a redline.
The White House released a statement following the meeting as well, that read, in part:
The President enjoyed hosting Speaker Pelosi, Leader Schumer, Leader McConnell, and Leader McCarthy, and spent the nearly two hours working with them to identify areas where they could collaborate, especially with regard to infrastructure, on which the leaders agreed there was a need for investment.
The President reiterated that he ran to be a leader for all Americans — regardless of who they voted for, that he believes there are many crucial areas where his administration and both parties in Congress can come together, and that in this unprecedented moment the American people expect us to put the interests of families above our disagreements.