After a Presidents’ Day weekend whodunit of who leaked what and why — not to mention a he-said, she-said back-and-forth on the Sunday shows and in news releases — President Obama took to the phones Tuesday afternoon to quell rising tensions with Senate Republicans after a draft of a White House immigration plan was somehow leaked to the news media.
On Tuesday afternoon, Mr. Obama spoke with the Republican Senators Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, John McCain of Arizona and Marco Rubio of Florida — three of the four Republican members of a Senate bipartisan group of eight seeking to create a legislative compromise on overhauling the nation’s immigration system — to discuss what the White House called “their shared commitment to bipartisan, common-sense immigration reform.” The fourth Republican member of the group, Senator Jeff Flake of Arizona, was traveling, but the White House said Mr. Obama hoped to talk to him in the near future.
Mr. Obama’s calls represented at least a tacit acknowledgment that the White House had been laggard in its political outreach to the Senate Republicans who are part of the bipartisan group, and that it was beginning to pay a political price.
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On Tuesday afternoon, Mr. Obama spoke with the Republican Senators Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, John McCain of Arizona and Marco Rubio of Florida — three of the four Republican members of a Senate bipartisan group of eight seeking to create a legislative compromise on overhauling the nation’s immigration system — to discuss what the White House called “their shared commitment to bipartisan, common-sense immigration reform.” The fourth Republican member of the group, Senator Jeff Flake of Arizona, was traveling, but the White House said Mr. Obama hoped to talk to him in the near future.
Mr. Obama’s calls represented at least a tacit acknowledgment that the White House had been laggard in its political outreach to the Senate Republicans who are part of the bipartisan group, and that it was beginning to pay a political price.
Read More