Obama Blows Off Boehner And Cantor’s Request For Meeting On Jobs Plan
Sep 7, 2011 7 Comments ›› Pat Dollard
The White House suggested Wednesday that President Obama will not meet with Speaker John Boehner and Majority Leader Eric Cantor before he delivers his jobs speech to Congress on Thursday night.
White House press secretary Jay Carney said he did not have any meetings to announce when asked if Obama would honor the request for consultation made by the Republican leaders.
“I do not believe that anyone out there in the country thinks that the answer to getting Washington out of gridlock is having another round, before this speech, of meetings in the Cabinet Room,” Carney said.
Carney said that Obama enjoys a “fine” working relationship with Republican and Democratic leaders, and he will consult with them on how to create jobs in the days, weeks and months following the speech.
“He has met on numerous occasions with those leaders throughout this year,” Carney said. “I think that he demonstrated his commitment to working with Congress to try to achieve big things this summer and he will continue to demonstrate a willingness to do that.”
Boehner and Cantor asked Obama to meet with congressional leaders from both parties to discuss his jobs plan.
Obama and his aides have grown more hostile toward Congress in the weeks following what Carney again called the “debt-ceiling fiasco” that occupied most of the summer and left most of Washington bruised.
Americans continue to be upset with Washington, and on Tuesday, Carney said that frustration is what is driving Obama’s approval numbers into the ground.
The country is “frustrated when Washington doesn’t just do nothing, but actually causes harm to the economy, which is exactly what happened this summer when a slice of Congress held Washington hostage in pursuit of an ideological victory.”
The president’s speech to Congress — originally planned for Wednesday night before Boehner rebuffed Obama — will be aggressive in trying to pressure Republicans to sign on to Obama’s jobs plan, Carney said.
