FULL HOUSE:
Reporters crowded into the White House's East Room to hear President
Barack Obama react to his party's Tuesday night electoral drubbing
NEW COLD WARRIOR?
Kentucky Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell (left) seized control of
Democrats' previous congressional stronghold on Tuesday, but Obama
behaved as though his party won
But
he said he would principally work with them 'if there are ideas that
the Republicans have that I am confident will make things better for
ordinary Americans.'
'I want to just see what works,' he said.
'The American people sent a message,' he claimed, 'one that they've sent for several elections now.'
'They expect the people they elect to work as hard as they do. They expect us to focus on their ambitions, and not ours.'
He
then rattled off a list of economic indicators that he said buttressed
his case that Republicans should accept his point of view.
'More
Americans are working. Unemployment has come down,' he claimed,
glossing over the part-time employment shift that the Obamacare law's
employer mandate has ushered in.
'Our
economy is outpacing most of the world. But we've just gotta keep at it.
Much of that will take action from Congress. And I'm eager to work with
the next Congress.'
He cited infrastructure building projects and international trade as areas where he thought his agenda overlaps with the GOP's.
Responding to hot-button questions about the fate of Obamacare in the age of a Republican Congress, the president didn't budge.
He
said he would only work with Republicans if they seek to 'make
responsible changes' to the law. 'I'm going to be very receptive to
hearing those ideas.'
'Despite all the contention,' Obama claimed, 'we now know that the law works.'
And he pledged to avoid last year's chronic website snafus the next time around.
'We're
really making sure the website works super well before the next open
enrollment period,' he said. 'We're double- and triple'checking it.'
Addressing
his relationship with the new Senate majority leader, Obama chuckled at
a question about whether he might sit down with him for a drink.
'I would enjoy having some Kentucky bourbon with Mitch McConnell,' the president said.
'He
has always been very straightforward with me. To his credit, he has
never made a promise that he couldn't deliver. And he knows the
legislative process well. He obviously know his caucus well.'
'What I'm not gonna do is just wait,' Obama said, pledging to take executive action on immigration by year's end
McConnell,
he told reporters, has 'always given me realistic assessments of what
he can get through his caucus and what he can't, so I think we can have a
productive relationship.'
Obama
also announced that he has sent Congress a funding request for $6.18
billion in new funds to fight the Ebola crisis at home and in Africa.
And
he surprised many by saying he would ask Congress for a new
Authorization for Use of Military Force to help him prosecute a flagging
war against the self-described Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham
(ISIS), the terror army that has slaughtered indiscriminately in its
quest for a regional caliphate.
The
move is a 180-degree turn from he administration's previous position
that a George W. Bush-era congressional permission slip was more than
adequate to deal with turmoil in Iraq and Syria.
'We
now have a different type of enemy,' Obama said Wednesday, echoing
Republicans' objections months ago. 'The strategy is different.'
''It
makes sense for us to make sure that the authorization from Congress
reflects what we perceive to be not just out strategy over the next two
to three months,' he said, but also our strategy moving forward.
The
president also challenged the lame-duck Congress, with a Senate still
run by the election-wounded Nevada Democrat Harry Reid, to 'pass a
budget for the rest of the fiscal year' in just five weeks, and to do it
in a 'bipartisan, drama-free way.'
And he didn't budge on immigration, despite the second midterm election shellacking of his presidency.
What landslide? Obama didn't
acknowledge a single policy where he would shift his point of view to
align with the new Republican congressional majority
'I
have consistently said that it is my profound preference and interest
to see Congress act on a comprehensive immigration reform bill,' Obama
said.
That sort of bill passed the Senate in 2013 but was dead on arrival in the House.
With
a larger Republican majority in the House and a newly minted Senate
majority as well, that plan seems even less likely to succeed now.
Obama
pledged to 'do everything I can in my executive authority' to take
'whatever lawful actions that I can take that I believe will improve our
immigration system.'
And he dared the GOP to see things his way.
Executive orders, he said, 'will be replaced and supplanted by a bill from Congress.'
'You send me a bill that I can sign and those executive actions go away.
But he cautioned: 'What I'm not gonna do is just wait.'
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