The Guardian
Biden’s offer to work with Republicans faces the first real test of Covid’s relief
Analysis: The president emphasized his willingness to work with Republicans – but some say his reach has limits Joe Biden at the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, on February 10. Photo: Carlos Barría / Reuters Joe Biden and his team pledged to extend the bipartisan olive branch like no previous government, in a move that apparently matches the new president’s long political history of seeking the support of Republicans. Since taking office, the Biden government has emphasized a willingness to work with Republicans on its main initiatives, such as Covid’s relief bill. Behind the scenes, he began a broad effort to reach as many offices as possible in Congress, contacting current and current Republican legislators and their teams, and hosting a high-profile meeting between nearly a dozen Republican senators and Biden himself. But it seems that the president’s reach – perhaps to the relief of the party’s left and observers long accustomed to cynical republican obstructionism – has its limits when it comes to real decision-making. Republicans are warning that Biden and his team may not be keeping their promises. They complain that most interactions occurred at the team level. These Republicans say the initial flurry of Biden’s executive orders issued in the early days of the president’s new government suggests an approach based on self-reliance. They also say that if the Biden government passes a Covid relief bill through a legislative maneuver known as reconciliation, it will send an additional signal of the real limits on Democrats’ willingness to close broad bipartisan agreements. And Republicans complain that the Democratic interest in using a Covid relief project to approve a minimum wage increase is yet another example of how the ruling party is disinterested in working with Republicans. “Biden talked about union. He had that meeting with the 10, but he is being pressured aggressively by his so-called progressives, ”said former Mississippi senator Trent Lott, a Republican. “Your first real test will be what they end up doing in the Covid package if they don’t agree to cut the $ 1.9 trillion, if they don’t agree to not include things like the $ 15 minimum wage, then it won’t be too bipartisan . In fact, it can fail. ”Tensions may be building, but there has not yet been a major public party explosion. Biden talks regularly with Republican lawmakers in person and on the phone, noted a Biden official. Some of these interactions are publicly known, including discussions with Senators Rob Portman of Ohio and Susan Collins of Maine. “President Biden kept his promise to bring Americans together to face the challenges that our country faces, and in office he made clear his willingness to find common ground with Republican lawmakers to do this,” said the White House spokesman. Mike Gwin in a statement. Republican lawmakers still express openness to talk and work with the Biden government. After a group of nine Republicans met with Biden to discuss a deal on a broad Covid relief bill, Collins, one of the most centrist Republicans in Congress, said he had not found a deal but would continue to talk. “I wouldn’t say that we came together in a package tonight. Nobody expected this at a two-hour meeting, ”Collins told reporters after the meeting in early February. “But what we agreed to do was to follow up and talk more with the team and between us and the president and vice president about how we can continue to work together on this very important issue.” Joe Biden and Kamala Harris meet with Republican lawmakers, including Mitt Romney, Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski, to discuss a coronavirus relief package. Photo: Evan Vucci / AP There were no ostentatious marches by the Republicans. No condemnation of how ridiculous the other side was being. The channels were still open. Biden also met with a bipartisan group of senators last week to start negotiations on an infrastructure initiative. Earlier this month, members of the White House legislative affairs team were scheduled to meet with Senate Republican chiefs of staff during their regular lunch for an unofficial meeting, according to three sources with knowledge of the lunch. The White House team warned that there may be some programming problems due to legislative events that day and the morning of the meeting the team said it would have to cancel and reschedule. Some chiefs of staff interpreted the cancellation as the Biden White House dismissing Republicans. But other officials emphasized that it was a sincere time conflict and that attendance would be rescheduled. The legislative team also emphasized to Republican officials that they were eager to meet with them. “It is important for people to come and, frankly, I think some of us want to have a constructive relationship with these people,” said a Republican official. The meeting was rescheduled. Notably, too, Republicans are eager to express their respect for Louisa Terrell, the head of legislative affairs at the White House, and Reema Dodin, a deputy in that position. “I can say that, as far as they are concerned, they want to work with us,” said the official. “We are all kind of discouraged to see them bring us down with this reconciliation, but whatever, that’s not what this is about.” Still, both Republican and Democratic officials are pessimistic about a major bipartisan deal in the immediate future. There were not some of the usual – and often ceremonial – gestures of bipartisanship that normally take place between a government and leaders of the opposite party. Biden did not have a public meeting with the top four Republican and Democratic congressional leaders. Former Senator Tom Daschle of South Dakota, who was the leader of most Democrats in the Senate from 2001 to 2003, asked White House officials to organize one of these summits. At the White House’s daily press conference on Tuesday, press secretary Jen Psaki was asked whether the government expected to be able to work with a Republican party as opposed to what it has been in recent years. “The country is looking for action, the country is looking for progress – for solutions – in Covid, in the economy. The package that the president proposed has the support of almost three quarters of the public in most of the polls, ”said Psaki. Daschle said it was still early for Biden and he deserved “high marks for his reach so far”. Daschle added that this is not the same Senate in which Biden worked. “He has to build relationships and rebuild relationships he had before with people like Mitch McConnell,” said Daschle. Daschle added that Biden will also need to offer an agenda “that if he wants a bipartisan job, he will need bipartisan involvement. This is probably not possible with Covid’s first aid package, because he has very ambitious aspirations for what this project should look like. I don’t think it’s likely that he will get Republican support for his aspirations. ” He said: “So, he has to decide between a big achievement in which he invested so much of his own personal stock or getting a bipartisan membership, and I think he will choose the first over the second.”