Reality begs to differ.
(CNS) — House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) told reporters at her Thursday briefing that President Barack Obama “has been so respectful of the Republicans in Congress.”
She was responding to a reporter who asked her to react to House Speaker John Boehner (R-Calif.) who said on Wednesday that the “president has been AWOL since Labor Day” and that he “lacks the courage to lead on the economy.”
“The fact is this president has been so respectful of the Republicans in Congress,” Pelosi said. “He has given them every opportunity for the executive and the legislative branch to work together, to have a solution that has bi-partisan support. He’s been criticized by some for taking the time that it takes to find out that they’re never going to give him a break, which is a compromise.”
“One thing I do know with absolute certainty, President Obama was in agreement with the grand bargain, which the two of them negotiated last summer,” said Pelosi. “When he asked us, the Democrats in Congress, can you support us going down a path that doesn’t have as much revenue as we want, but that it has the balance, that has cuts that are painful, but also has some revenue in terms of assuming the repeal of the Bush tax cuts [on Dec. 31, 2012] he said, go for it, that would be our recommendation. The president didn’t need our recommendation, he knew where he was on it, but I think it was important for him to know that we were with him.”