Biden on working with Senate Republicans: 'I'll never publicly embarrass them' | TheHill
President-elect Joe Biden expressed optimism that he will be able to work with Republicans because of his years working alongside them, despite a sharply divided Congress.
“My leverage is, every senior Republican knows I’ve never once, ever, misled them,” Biden said on a telephone call Wednesday with several columnists, according to
The New York Times. “I’ll never publicly embarrass them.”
Biden faces a Congress deeply divided along party lines. Many Republican lawmakers have sided with
President Trump's unproven claims of election fraud.
But Biden told the journalists on the call, which included Times columnist David Leonhardt, The Washington Post's Jonathan Capehart and The Wall Street Journal's Gerald F. Seib, that he thinks the country is in a different place now that will allow for agreement and action on certain issues — including the environment.
“I’m going to be able to get stuff done on the environment you all are not going to believe,” he said, according to the Times. “I couldn’t have gotten it done six years ago.”
He also said he is hopeful bipartisan work can get done in responding to the coronavirus pandemic. The virus has infected more than 18 million people and killed more than 329,000 in the U.S., and has posed significant economic challenges nationwide.
“There’s a new sense of urgency on the part of the public at large,” he said. “The American public is being made painfully aware of the extent and damage and incredibly high cost of failing to take the kind of measures we’ve been talking about.”