House Speaker-to-be John Boehner put distance last night between himself and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who has twice stated that a top political goal for the GOP is to make Barack Obama a one-term President.
“That’s Senator McConnell’s statement. And — and his opinion. I think the American people want us to focus on their message during the election,” Boehner said in an interview with ABC News.
Boehner’s rhetoric has been generally milder than McConnell’s since Tuesday’s election. But that doesn’t mean he’s taking it easy on the Democrats.
“Well, I didn’t see the President’s press conference on Wednesday,” Boehner said. “But I’ve read a little bit about it. And there seems to be some denial on the part of the President, and other Democrat leaders. The message that was sent by the American People. When you have the most historic election in over 60-70 years, you would think that the other party would understand that the American people have clearly repudiated the policies that they put forward the last two years.”
If anything is certain about the next two years. it’s that we’ll be hearing the word “Democrat” (instead of “Democratic”) used as an adjective a whole lot more.
Watch the interview below.
Brian Beutler
Brian Beutler is TPM's senior congressional reporter. Since 2009, he's led coverage of health care reform, Wall Street reform, taxes, the GOP budget, the government shutdown fight, and the debt limit fight. He can be reached at brian@talkingpointsmemo.com.
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