Just as he did when Barack Obama was president, Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has vowed to obstruct every piece of legislation that comes from the Biden administration, and he appears to have most Senate Republicans on board with the plan.
But what McConnell forgot to factor into his scheme is that President Joe Biden also served in the Senate for decades and knows how the upper chamber of Congress works, which means he has a distinct advantage over the Senate Minority Leader, who is now almost powerless to do anything other than make speeches.
Take for example the White House’s infrastructure package, which Biden continues to insist he wants to have Republicans support, so he keeps talking and negotiating with them.
As NBC National Political Reporter Sahil Kapur explained Wednesday on MSNBC, Biden is reaching out to the GOP because he wants to keep every Senate Democrat on board:
And there’s another strategy in play when it comes to what Biden is doing regarding McConnell: It gives the president flexibility to cut deals on the side with the GOP that also serve to undermine McConnell and weaken his already tenuous hold on his caucus:
President Biden would love to pass a bipartisan infrastructure bill, but he doesn’t need a single Republican as long as he keeps all 50 Democrats on board. Then he can use reconciliation and get a massive infrastructure package through Congress with Vice President Kamala Harris casting the tiebreaking vote in the Senate.
Mitch McConnell is irrelevant and he knows it. And at the moment Joe Biden is besting him at his own game, proving that while the Kentucky Republican may well be a master Senate tactician, he’s met his match in this president.