McConnell to Obama: 'Turn the page'

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell urged President Barack Obama to “turn the page” on the adversarial relationship between Congress and the White House during the president’s State of the Union address on Tuesday night.

While the GOP leader again predictably dinged Obama on Tuesday morning for his threats to veto approval of the Keystone XL Pipeline before it even passes the Senate and for playing to his liberal base through progressive tax and environmental proposals, McConnell (R-Ky.) said “there’s a lot riding on” Obama’s address when it comes to legacy-building between Capitol Hill and the president.


“When we’ve asked the White House for constructive engagement, what we’ve seen, at least so far, has been pretty discouraging. We need to change this dynamic. We need to turn the page. The State of the Union offers that opportunity,” McConnell said.

Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), who’s filling in for Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) on the Senate floor, dismissed McConnell’s rhetoric as “relying on faith alone” to make things better for struggling Americans as the GOP congressional majorities dismiss Obama’s college affordability and tax proposals aimed at working class Americans.

“Faith in the free market is a good thing but not enough. We need to step in and make sure we have faith in working families,” Durbin said after McConnell spoke. “If their struggle paycheck-to-paycheck is somehow lessened, we’re all going to be better off for it.”

McConnell said despite that impasse between Obama and Congress on myriad issues from Keystone to Obamacare, he’s still bullish that Obama and the GOP Congress can come together on one more big agreements, like new trade deals and passing cybersecurity legislation. But McConnell also urged Obama to “give us new ideas” on new Iran sanctions legislation that Obama has vowed to veto as well as reform Medicare and bring the budget into balance, tweaking Obama for telling Senate Democrats last week that he plans to go on “offense” during the last two years of his presidency.

“If the president is ready to play offense, we urge him to join the new Congress and play offense on behalf of the American people,” McConnell said.