The White House is declaring victory over Washington — at least in terms of setting the agenda for Republican leaders, rank-and-file members of Congress and even the GOP presidential field.

Three months into the expanded Republican majorities on the Hill, White House aides see a landscape in which President Barack Obama is more in charge now than he was before the midterms. Rather than moving forward on their own priorities as Republican leaders promised after their midterm sweep, the House and Senate find themselves reacting to Obama.


So far, most legislation hasn’t moved at all, and the most prominent votes have been on bills they already know Obama won’t sign. Even the political flare-ups over Iran, White House aides say, are more evidence of a Congress — Republicans and Democrats alike — that is reacting to the president’s agenda.

But even if it’s just fulminating about what Obama’s doing wrong, the conversation is still about what Obama’s doing.

“To the extent that Republicans on Capitol Hill are doing things, it is either putting out fires in their own camp or responding to incoming from President Obama,” White House press secretary Josh Earnest said in an interview.

“Most of the message of the Republican presidential candidates is a message that is a reaction or response to White House initiatives, or actions taken by the White House,” Earnest added.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), Earnest said, hasn’t delivered on his promise to make government work or find areas of cooperation with Obama. The idea of House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) being in control of his conference makes Earnest laugh out loud.

“Depends on the day,” he said.

With the House coming back into session, and after two weeks of awkwardly being the de facto defense for Hillary Clinton’s campaign over her email account, the White House is hoping to refocus the conversation on its legislative agenda — to the extent that there is one.

The West Wing wish list looks largely the same as it did headed into the year: a spring approval of fast-track authority, criminal justice reform, a new authorization for the use of military force to fight terrorist groups in Syria and Iraq, and Loretta Lynch’s confirmation as attorney general. Corporate tax reform has faded in many minds, as has talk of new infrastructure funding.

And though Obama spent part of the “Bloody Sunday” commemoration last weekend in Selma, Alabama, calling for new action on voting rights, Earnest said the White House isn’t committed to leading a new effort to pass legislation on the Hill.

Still, after Republicans had to turn to Democrats to find the votes to pass a funding bill for the Department of Homeland Security, the White House is projecting confidence.

“There’s no question that frankly the Republican disorganization has put them at a strategic disadvantage in interfacing with the White House and has contributed to this dynamic of the White House being the one — and the only one — that’s on offense,” Earnest said.

Republicans see a White House that is making excuses for itself and its veto threats (including the actual veto of the Keystone XL pipeline authorization), and they blame Democrats for what’s not happening on the Hill.

“Maybe they should spend less time trash-talking and more time tending their own garden: Their party in Congress is currently filibustering a bill that would help prevent children from being sold into sex slavery — and the president won’t lift a finger,” said McConnell deputy chief of staff Don Stewart, referring to the human-trafficking bill that the majority leader said Sunday would have to move before he brings Lynch’s confirmation to the floor.

Stewart pointed out that Democrats on the Hill are the ones leading the opposition to Obama’s trade proposal and military force push.

Boehner spokesman Cory Fritz said Obama seems more interested in tending to his own public relations than legislation.

“What agenda? President Obama has been off joking with Jimmy Kimmel, ‘interviewing’ with a woman who eats cereal out of a bathtub and smiling for his selfie stick while Democrats are looking to block the few realistic items this White House has floated,” Fritz said.

For all that, Earnest said, the White House is clearly in more control now than he was a year ago, when Democrats still controlled the Senate.

“Unequivocally yes,” he said. “At least the debate in Washington is sharper now that you have a Republican-controlled Congress and Democratic control of the White House, and I think Republicans have had a harder time in the majority than they thought they were going to.”

If anything is going to be different over the next two years, Earnest said, the Republicans are going to have to learn to accept building majorities with Democrats, as they eventually did on DHS, and moving on issues where the president is willing to deal.

Drew Hammill, communications director for House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), agreed on that point.

“The Republican agenda is dysfunction, obstruction and distraction, and there is certainly no discernible jobs agenda,” Hammill said. “What we see over and over again are the same rehashed bills that are either anti-science, anti-governance or anti-Obama.”