President Joe Biden and Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell are finally ready for a face-to-face meeting. It comes as Biden is ramping up efforts to reach a bipartisan infrastructure deal that McConnell says he has no interest in passing as proposed. https://t.co/cJzgAFBNPw
— The Associated Press (@AP) May 11, 2021
… President Joe Biden’s sit-down on Wednesday with Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell and other congressional leaders comes as the White House accelerates its efforts to reach a bipartisan infrastructure agreement — or at least aims to show it’s trying. But McConnell is plainly stating in advance that he’s not interested in the plan as proposed.
The president’s meeting with McConnell, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy is the first formal gathering of the “big four” congressional leaders since the president took office — a late start after a tumultuous new year. But the timing is crucial for White House’s outreach on Biden’s two-pronged $4 trillion American jobs and families plans…
Just days before the meeting, the Republican leader said his goal was simply, and essentially, to halt the Democratic president’s agenda.
McConnell said “100% of my focus is stopping” the Biden administration, a comment that evoked his vow early in the Obama presidency to make the Democrat a one-term president…
The president has hosted a trio of key Democratic senators at the White House already this week, including moderates Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, both of whom the White House needs to keep on board for the massive spending bill. And on Thursday, Biden will meet with six Republican senators, including Sen. Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, the ranking GOP member on the Environment and Public Works Committee, to hear their plans for a smaller and more narrowly defined infrastructure bill.
Aides said to expect Biden to host more Republicans in the weeks ahead of a soft Memorial Day deadline the White House set for gauging how feasible a bipartisan bill may be. Missing no opportunity, Biden buttonholed Louisiana senators John Kennedy and Bill Cassidy on an airport tarmac during a visit to their home state last week…
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