“We just talked about Burma – an issue that I have a long-standing interest in,” McConnell told CNN of the February conversation, although he said earlier that they also talked about the budget process and Covid’s relief during that Link.
But the White House has a different account.
“He talks to him regularly,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said on Wednesday, refusing to go into details other than mentioning a “long friendship” between the two men who served for more than two years. decades together in the Senate.
When pressed for more details, Psaki objected, saying, “I don’t have any more calls, I don’t think so, to read to you, which we won’t make the case for.”
“The story is what happened to Joe Biden in the old days,” said South Carolina Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, whom Biden called “personal disappointment” in December. The two have not spoken since he took office.
The new president has not spoken to Republican Party leader Kevin McCarthy since the day of his inauguration. He has not yet spoken to the House’s second Republican, Steve Scalise, since becoming president, nor has he even spoken to the Senate’s Republican whip, John Thune.
“No,” said Toomey, whose bipartisan plan to expand background checks on firearms sales has been stalled for eight years, when asked if he heard from Biden about the issue.
Has he heard from Biden since January 20?
“No,” said Toomey.
Before taking office, Biden used to boast of his ability to work in the corridor, even in a deeply divided Washington. He clearly said to skeptics during the transition: “Watch me. Watch me.”
But since then, in the wake of Republicans who oppose his agenda, a new definition of bipartisanship has emerged. In particular, Biden told Senate Democrats at a virtual meeting this week that bipartisanship is defined by what voters say, not what McConnell thinks, according to a person familiar with his comments. And his advisers expressed a similar sentiment.
“He doesn’t believe bipartisanship is defined by a postal code here,” said Psaki at the White House meeting on Wednesday. “He believes it is about how we can offer help to the American people.”
Collins says he suggested that Biden meet once a week with Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer and McConnell, as was the case when top party leaders met regularly with then President George W. Bush when the chamber was in session during his term. That has not been the case so far.
“I would love to see this restarted,” said Collins.
White House officials say they were forced to limit larger meetings due to the pandemic, but also noted that there were regular bipartisan meetings, in addition to disclosure with senior advisers, including a recent one on infrastructure. At his first meeting with lawmakers, Biden invited a group of 10 Republican senators to discuss the Covid-19 relief, although he later moved forward with a $ 1.9 trillion relief plan supported only by Democrats after rejecting the approach republican as inadequate.
Democrats say the president and his top advisers have regularly communicated with lawmakers on both sides and argue that the approach is very different from that of Donald Trump, who, as president, has spoken primarily to the most loyal Republicans and has not spoken to them House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for the final 15 months of her term.
“The first group he invited to the White House was 10 Republicans,” said Senator Chris Coons, a Delaware Democrat who holds the Senate seat that Biden has held for 36 years.
Still, some Republicans who have contacted the White House say they have had no response – be it McCarthy’s request for an immigration meeting or Senator Kevin Cramer, a North Dakota Republican, on energy policy.
“The promise to be bipartisan was probably one of the most hollow political promises I have ever seen in my life,” said Cramer.
But while many Republicans have not heard of the president, some have caught his eye.
Some Republicans spoke to the president
Biden picked up the phone to speak to some Republicans, including Grassley, the Senate’s oldest Republican, who told CNN that he and Biden had a “friendly conversation” that lasted about two minutes a few weeks ago. Grassley told him that they could work together to reduce the prices of prescription drugs.
Asked what motivated the call, Grassley said of his former Senate colleague: “I did something he liked.”
Grassley added: “He has terrible policies, but you can’t help but like the guy.”
Collins, a leading centrist Republican who worked with Biden for many years when he was in the Senate, said she has had several good conversations with Biden since he became president.
“My personal conversations with the president have been productive, graceful and welcoming,” she said, while acknowledging that some of her early interactions with some of Biden’s top employees were frustrating, although she believes these issues are now behind them, after she had a “constructive conversation” with Biden’s chief of staff, Ron Klain, last week.
Ohio Republican Senator Rob Portman attended two meetings with Biden – one on Covid’s relief bill and the second to discuss legislation that puts pressure on China.
“I wish they were more interested in working with us on a bipartisan basis. If you think about it. What did we do on a bipartisan basis? Really nothing,” said Portman, who noted that he voted for most of Biden’s nominees, something he considers a bipartisan act. “I am talking to the White House trying to encourage them to do more.”
Senator Shelley Moore Capito, Republican of West Virginia, attended the White House infrastructure meeting, in addition to the Covid-relief meeting. She said she was satisfied with the White House’s reach, but when asked if she was satisfied that the president and his team were listening to her suggestions, she laughed.
“This is a different matter,” said Capito.
Cornyn, a Texas Republican, repeated that Biden’s reach has been good on China’s issues and concerns about vulnerable supply chains. He attended a “good meeting” on the subject at the White House, which Biden attended. Cornyn said there was “good follow-up” from the White House on that as well.
He said he suspected that people around Biden were concerned that former President Barack Obama had tried to make a lot of contact with Republicans and that this had limited his ability to approve his agenda.
“That is the only thing that we have seen bipartisan reach,” he said. “In a 50-50 Senate, it is true that they can block some things, but I think they are going to leave a lot of things on the table that they might otherwise be able to do.”
White House officials declined to discuss the number of interactions that Biden has had with Republicans recently.
“Obviously we are not going to read all of these links and I hope this will continue,” said Psaki of evangelism.
But after McConnell said in an interview with Fox News on Wednesday that he had not spoken to Biden “since taking office,” the Republican Party leader later clarified to CNN that he only spoke to Biden about the Burma issue.
At the end of the day, when asked about Psaki’s claim to his regular discussions with the president, McConnell came into the room and did not respond.
Jeff Zeleny and Lauren Fox of CNN contributed to this report.