Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said on Wednesday that President Biden has not invited him to the White House despite pledges by the administration to “start afresh” and engage in bipartisanship.
The Kentucky Republican told Fox News he believes Biden “isn’t interested in doing anything bipartisan or in the political center” but rather is “trying to jam through everything on the hard Left.”
McConnell and Biden have spoken just one time since Biden took office, engaging in a phone conversation in February about the military coup in Burma.
Ten Senate Republicans met with Biden on the same day to discuss a bipartisan COVID-19 aid spending package, but the talks did not produce an accord.
Instead, according to a GOP aide, White House chief of staff Ron Klain appeared to reject Republican efforts to influence the bill during the meeting by shaking his head at their proposals and rejecting a bipartisan approach.
“It wasn’t really even a serious discussion,” the aide said.
Republicans were initially hopeful Biden would work across the aisle.
Biden served for decades in the Senate, often aligning with centrist Democrats, and was President Barack Obama’s chief negotiator with the chamber, helping to cut critical deals while serving as vice president from 2009 until 2017.
But Republicans so far have been shut out of major legislation.
Senate Democrats are instead looking for ways to avert the 60-vote threshold in the Senate.
They passed the $1.9 trillion spending bill using a process called reconciliation, which lowers the threshold from 60 votes to 51 votes, and may use the process again to move a major infrastructure bill. Democrats are also pushing for the elimination of the legislative filibuster, which would likely cut Republicans out of the process entirely.
Democrats argue that GOP lawmakers are the ones who are unwilling to compromise and are simply blocking the kind of bold agenda the public supports, including the spending bill, which provided a new round of stimulus checks and enhanced unemployment insurance.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said he would seek bipartisan agreements on legislation but is ready to go around the GOP if Republicans do not cooperate.
In his inaugural address on Jan. 20, Biden asked both parties to try to work together and heal the nation after a divisive election and Capitol riots that left five dead.
“Let’s start afresh, all of us,” Biden said. “Let’s begin to listen to one another again.” He added, “Politics doesn’t have to be a raging fire, destroying everything in its path.”
