“I recognize that it’s very hard for Republican leaders to be perceived as making concessions to me,” Obama said. He suggested that Republicans - who accuse him of continuing to campaign despite the election being long over - were driven, at least in part by entrenched hostility toward him still simmering after their election losses. McConnell, after the talks, called it “the president’s across-the-board cuts” even though both sides agreed in 2011 to have these “sequestration” spending cuts go into effect if Obama and lawmakers failed to fashion another deficit-reduction plan.īut with lawmakers either heading out of town or already gone, Obama used the presidential soapbox on Friday to hammer home his points. Republicans, for their part, insist Obama is exaggerating the potential impact of the cuts, but are seeking to avoid blame. He believes he’s winning the public relations war and that Americans will put the lion’s share of the blame on the Republicans for any economic pain and social hardship caused by failing to head off $85 billion in spending cuts due to start taking effect. Obama’s self-confidence - and his willingness to let things go over the edge, at least temporarily, in the latest fiscal battle - demonstrated what his aides have been saying for weeks. The president acknowledged that “this is not going to be an apocalypse” but he called the cuts “just dumb.” Obama combined a reference to the “mind trick” sometimes used by Jedi on weak-minded adversaries in the “Star Wars” films with the “Vulcan mind meld” technique used by the “Star Trek” character Spock and others from his fictional planet Vulcan. The fact that they don’t take it means that I should somehow do a ‘Jedi mind-meld’ with these folks and convince them to do what’s right,” he said, while offering no new ideas for resolving the bitter dispute. Pressed on whether he was showing enough leadership - something Republicans say he has been lacking in the fiscal showdown - Obama mixed up his sci-fi references but made his point, nonetheless. So, ultimately, if (Senate Republican leader) Mitch McConnell or (Republican House of Representatives Speaker) John Boehner say, ‘We need to go to catch a plane,’ I can’t have Secret Service block the doorway, right?” REUTERS/Larry DowningĮmerging from a nearly hour-long meeting and taking the podium in the White House briefing room, Obama displayed a combative style that has become his regular approach toward opponents since his decisive re-election victory in November.Īsked why he didn’t just refuse to let congressional leaders leave the room until they had a deal, Obama told reporters: “I am not a dictator. President Barack Obama walks into the press briefing room while television correspondents Major Garrett (L) and Jonathan Karl (R) are talking live on TV after a meeting with Congressional leaders in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington March 1, 2013.
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