What friendship between Biden and Mcconnell could mean in Washington
“Well, first of all, I am going to treat him a hell of a lot better than Chuck Schumer ever treated Donald Trump.”
My chat with Senate Majority Leader Mitch Mcconnell came last week, shortly after he eulogized the Trump administration and acknowledged Joe Biden as president-elect. His speech on the Senate floor was a crisp packaging of Trump’s successes and a nod to the cranking of America’s democratic gears.
“The Electoral College has spoken,” Mcconnell said.
With Trump leaving the White House in January, the question on many minds is how Mcconnell’s and Biden’s relationship will impact policymaking. In Mcconnell’s estimation, relations between the two parties and two branches of government are bound to be better from the start because the Kentucky Republican does not intend to “bring the administration to its knees” the way Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer did when Trump took over.
On 128 occasions, Schumer led filibusters against Trump appointees,schumer’s liberal use of the filibuster against non-controversial appointees destroyed any pretense that Democrats wanted to find areas of agreement with Republicans.
Two Biden nominees who face a tough road are Neera Tanden, a hyperpartisan Democratic operative (with detractors on the right and left) nominated for director of the White House Office of Management and Budget; and Xavier Becerra, nominated for secretary of Health and Human Services with an extremist, pro-abortion record.
Aside from personnel, Mcconnell anticipated that the two parties could find common ground on infrastructure spending, although “we still have to figure out how to pay for it.
“I think the American people expect us to look for areas of agreement in a divided system while setting aside for debate the things we don’t agree on,” Mcconnell said.
Mcconnell described his relationship with Biden as a “friendship,” and noted that he was the only Senate Republican to attend Beau Biden’s funeral. This will be the first time in Mcconnell’s career that he has known a new president for as long and as well as he has known Biden.
During the Obama years, it was often Mcconnell and Biden who forged agreements that staved off some crisis. Both men are fiercely partisan, but neither view their political duties as incompatible with their official responsibilities. Biden will fight for Democrats and Mcconnell for Republicans, just as always. And no one should expect Senate Republicans to begin rubber-stamping Pelosi-written legislation anytime soon.
But both are pros, two veteran Washington knights who know how to raise their visors in friendship from across the battlefield and mean it. And both know how to make deals. Maybe the American people will get a calmer, more functional Washington because of it.
Scott Jennings is a Republican adviser, CNN political contributor and partner at Runswitch Public Relations. This column originally appeared in the Louisville Courier Journal.