WASHINGTON – When President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. takes office next month, he will face a heavily divided Congress, where many Republicans have argued that his election was fraudulent.
But Biden expressed optimism on Wednesday that his mark of decades of centrist negotiation would enable him to move beyond the bitter partisanship of the past four years and advance his agenda.
“My advantage is that every senior Republican knows that I have never, ever, deceived them,” said Biden during a telephone conversation with several columnists, including David Leonhardt of The New York Times. “I will never publicly embarrass them.”
As vice president, Biden had a front row seat in the eight years of obstruction that Republicans waged against President Barack Obama. In his second term, Obama practically abandoned the hope of large-scale legislative victories, turning to executive action. President Trump took a similar approach in fighting Democrats in the House.
But Biden insisted on Wednesday that his skills and history gave him the opportunity to break the cycle.
He said the country was in a different place now. As an example, Biden argued that Americans have reached a broader consensus on climate change, with people of all political trends saying they recognize the need for more aggressive action.
“I will be able to do things about the environment that you will not even believe in,” he told columnists. “I couldn’t have done that six years ago.”
Biden expressed a similar hope for bipartisan work in tackling the coronavirus pandemic and restoring economic health in a country plagued by job losses and company closings.
He acknowledged widespread fatigue from coronavirus restrictions across the country, especially during the holiday season. However, the president-elect described Americans’ broad willingness to do whatever was necessary to reduce the transmission of the virus and save lives.
“There is a new sense of urgency on the part of the general public,” he said. “The American public is being painfully alerted to the extent, damage and incredibly high cost of failing to take the kind of measures we’re talking about.”
Biden’s optimism will certainly be tested quickly when he takes office. Research shows that the public is quite divided, usually on party lines, over restrictions on the pandemic. Regardless of which party controls the Senate after two second rounds of early January in Georgia, Congress will be more divided than at any time in recent memory.
And as president, Biden will need to build bridges for Democrats as well as Republicans. Once again, progressives who were waiting for a more liberal policy champion in the White House feel burned by the 2020 elections. They have already promised to pressure Biden against making deals with Republicans.
Asked by journalists on the call, who also included Gerald F. Seib of The Wall Street Journal and Jonathan Capehart of The Washington Post, whether he was up to the fight with Republicans and the most combative members of his own party, Mr. Biden bristling.
“Respectfully, I suggest you defeat all the others,” he said, noting that he won the Democratic presidential nomination and seven million more votes than Trump. “I think I know what I’m doing and I have been very good at being able to handle the punches. I know how to block a straight right and make a right hook. I understand.”
But he added: “I am ready to fight. But one of the things that happens is when you enter one of those types of blood games, nothing is done, nothing is done. “