President-elect Joe Biden
Joe BidenJudge launches Republican Party lawsuit to close Georgia polls after business hours The Fauci Serenade with first-time attendees Joe Biden may be president of middle-class workers he expressed his optimism at being able to work with Republicans because of his years working alongside him, despite a heavily divided Congress.
“My leverage is that all senior Republicans know I’ve never cheated on them,” Biden said in a phone call Wednesday with several columnists, according to the New York Times. “I will never embarrass them publicly.”
Biden faces a Congress deeply divided along the party line. Many Republican lawmakers have sided President Trump
Donald TrumpPowell says White House aides will not let her help Judge Trump launch Republican lawsuit to close Georgia polls after business hours Bipartisan, bicameral group urges Trump to sign relief package COVID-19 MOREunproven claims of election fraud.
But Biden told reporters in the call, which included Times columnist David Leonhardt, Jonathan Capehart of the Washington Post and Gerald F. Seib of The Wall Street Journal, that he believes the country is in a different place now that it will allow agreement and action on certain issues, including the environment.
“I’m going to be able to do things about the environment that you won’t all believe,” he said, according to the Times. “Six years ago I couldn’t have done it.”
He also said he hopes bipartisan work can be done in responding to the coronavirus pandemic. The virus has infected more than 18 million people and killed more than 329,000 in the United States, and has posed significant economic challenges across the country.
“There’s a new sense of urgency on the part of the general public,” he said. “It makes the American public painfully aware of the scope and the harm and the incredibly high cost of not taking the kind of action we’ve been talking about.”
Democrats will retain control of the House when Biden takes office in January, but the fate of the Senate is yet to be decided, as Georgia is heading for two runoff rounds.
Democrats Jon Ossoff and the Rev. Raphael Warnock face GOP Sens. David Perdue
David PerdueOssoff, Warnock, each rake of more than 0 million judges. Judge launches GOP lawsuit to close Georgia polls after business hours Trump’s call for K checks puts pressure on Georgia GOP senators MORE i Kelly Loeffler
Kelly LoefflerOssoff, Warnock each rake of more than 0 million judges. The judge launches the GOP’s demand to close Georgia’s ballot boxes after business hours. Warnock says he will focus on Georgians after the video of the ex-wife MORE’s surfaces, respectively, in the January 5 election.
If Perdue and Loeffler are successful, the Republican Party will retain control of the Senate. But if Ossoff and Warnock defeated them, Biden would face less on his agenda, as Democrats would control both houses of Congress during the beginning of his presidency.
Biden may also face some challenges from his own party. He was one of the most centrist candidates in the presidential primaries and has already faced pressure from progressives on several issues.
Asked this week if he was about to fight Republicans and members of his own party, Biden told columnists, “I respectfully suggest he win hell over everyone else.”
The president-elect noted that he led Trump with more than 7 million votes and won the nomination for the Democratic presidency, beating several prominent progressives, according to the Times.
“I think I know what I’m doing, and I’ve been pretty damn able to deal with the punches. I know how to block a straight left and make a right hook. I understand, ”he said.