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Coming away from Tuesday's resounding election victory, top Senate and House Republicans expressed a new willingness to cut deals with the White House. But as NPR's Juana Summers reports, the relationship between the White House and House Speaker John Boehner is complicated.
JUANA SUMMERS, BYLINE: Things are looking up for House Speaker John Boehner. Tuesday's elections gave his party the biggest GOP majority since the Truman administration and control of the Senate for the first time since 2006. How Boehner wants to use his newfound power was clear today at his first press conference since the election. He took a hard line with Pres. Obama over the issue of immigration.
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HOUSE SPEAKER JOHN BOEHNER: When you play with matches, you take the risk of burning yourself. And he's going to burn himself if he continues to go down this path.
SUMMERS: The path he is referring to is Pres. Obama's commitment to act unilaterally before the end of the year on immigration. It is widely thought that Obama would grant work permits to millions of Americans illegally in the United States. Boehner called that a nonstarter. [POST-BROADCAST CORRECTION: There is a reference in this report to the possibility that President Obama might grant work permits to "millions of Americans." That was an inadvertent mistake. We should have said "millions of people."]
(SOUNDBITE OF PRESS CONFERENCE)
BOEHNER: I've made clear to the president that if he acts unilaterally on his own outside of his authority, he will poison the well and there will be no chance for immigration reform moving in this Congress.
SUMMERS: Boehner's message was clear - Republicans have the keys to Capitol Hill and they plan to move quickly to advance their agenda in the next Congress. That includes approving the Keystone Pipeline, tax cuts and reducing government regulation. Compromise didn't seem to be high on the agenda.
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BOEHNER: Now, finding common grounds can be hard work, but it'll be even harder if the president isn't willing to work with us.
SUMMERS: Boehner even needled Democrats for their support of the federal health care law, suggesting it was part of the reason for their losses across the country.
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BOEHNER: The American people have made it clear, they're not for Obamacare. Now, ask all those Democrats who lost their elections Tuesday night. A lot of them voted for Obamacare.
SUMMERS: Boehner said the House would vote on repealing the health care law, a nonstarter for the White House.
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BOEHNER: And so the House, I'm sure at some point next year, will move to repeal Obamacare because it should be repealed and it should be replaced with common sense reforms that respect the doctor relation - doctor-patient relationship. Now, whether that can pass the Senate, I don't know.
SUMMERS: Even with the bigger majority in the House and control of the Senate, Republicans still face obstacles. The GOP is still bruised from last year's government shut down and Republican leadership in both houses still face the challenge of managing conservative defectors who are more interested in fighting with Obama than taking cues from the party's leadership. Today, Boehner downplayed concerns that extremists among the GOP's new freshman class would make it harder to govern.
(SOUNDBITE OF PRESS CONFERENCE)
BOEHNER: Yes, we have some new members who've made some statements. I'll give you that. But when you look at the vast majority of the new members that are coming in here, they're really solid members.
SUMMERS: Republicans do acknowledge they'll have to get to work or voters will show them the door. Here is Oregon's Greg Walden, who chairs the Republican House Campaign Committee.
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CONGRESSMAN GREG WALDEN: It was a huge night, a historic night. But we also know we have to get to work doing the governing piece. Our party ultimately will be measured by how we govern. And that's what Americans have elected us to do and we're eager to get to that work.
SUMMERS: But enacting legislation in Washington is much more difficult than promising to do so at press conferences or on the campaign trail. Juana Summers, NPR News, Washington. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
