Obama met with Republican leaders today at the White House for a “bipartisan lunch.”
This was his first meeting with Republican leaders after Democrats were shellacked in the midterm elections.
Obama lashed out at Republicans when the cameras were turned off. The AP reported:
Republicans attending the postelection lunch at Obama’s invitation said they asked him for more time to work on legislation, but the president said his patience was running out. He reiterated his intent to act on his own by the end of the year if they don’t approve legislation to ease deportations before then and send it to him to sign.
The Republicans’ approach, three days after they resoundingly won control of the Senate in midterm elections, “seemed to fall on deaf ears,” Sen. John Cornyn of Texas said in a telephone interview. “The president instead of being contrite or saying in effect to America, ‘I hear you,’ as a result of the referendum on his policies that drove this last election, he seems unmoved and even defiant.”
“I don’t know why he would want to sabotage his last two years as president by doing something this provocative,” said Cornyn…
…The meeting was tense at times, according to a senior House Republican aide. The aide was not authorized to describe the back-and-forth publicly by name and spoke only on condition of anonymity.
Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid, about to lose his grip on the upper chamber, barely said a word. The aide said at one point as House Speaker John Boehner was making an argument on immigration, Obama responded that his patience was running out and Vice President Joe Biden interrupted to ask how long Republicans needed. Obama angrily cut Biden off, the aide said.
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DEFIANT IN DEFEAT: Obama tells GOP: MY mandate is bigger than yours
