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WASHINGTON -- On the heels of the GOP's internal anti-Trump purge, Republican congressional leaders went to the White House Wednesday for a bipartisan discussion with President Joe Biden on his plan for infrastructure repair and improvement.
With GOP Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming deposed as her party's House conference chairwoman, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell joined House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer to move on with the nation's business.
The bipartisan session followed a similar meeting Biden held with three Republican and three Democratic governors. The president declined to comment on the Grand Old Party's intramural dust-up over Cheney's rebellion against Trump.
Instead, Biden reiterated his commitment to work across the partisan aisle, amid little expectation of any immediate breakthrough on the scope of his $2.3 trillion infrastructure plan.
The president has chosen to focus on the need for more direct assistance to struggling families and and has maintained his plans would impose no increased federal taxes on those making less than $400,000 a year.
Meanwhile, the Republicans were left to deal with the aftermath of their internal rift.
One ranking Republican, Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, settled for observing of his party's division: "Hopefully, they'll get some of these things settled down in the House and we can unite as a party, and focus on the real threat here, which I think is the Democrats' agenda and that it can do to the country," alluding to an excessive price tag for the deficit-minded Republicans.
Former Republican presidential nominee Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah weighed in on his party's inner dispute, saying: "Trying to re-litigate an election which is over…and has been concluded by President Trump's own Justice Department as being free and fair…is not productive."
Democratic Sen. Brian Schatz of Hawaii said of Biden's reaction: "There's an iron rule in politics, which is that when your opponents are destroying themselves, don't interfere." He said the president "understands that keeping a steady demeanor is not just good personally, it's great politics."
White House press secretary Jen Psaki, commenting on the Republican scrap over Trump, acknowledged Biden's decision to leave the dispute to the opposition party. "At no point is our effort to fight for bipartisanship being an arbiter or mediator between intraparty fighting in the Republican Party. … We're going to have a discussion about how we can work together."
Yet Biden and the congressional Republicans are far apart not only on the size of the president's infrastructure plan, but also on whether it should include ancillary objectives like financial aid for child care and other social welfare items.
In the end, the president may be obliged to rely on his narrow majority in both houses of Congress to carry to the day for the infrastructure work that both sides acknowledge is needed. He did just that in passing his massive American Rescue Plan Act to tame the pandemic and its associated ills in the economy. He may well do so again to resolve any stiff Republican resistance.
(Jules Witcover's latest book is "The American Vice Presidency: From Irrelevance to Power," published by Smithsonian Books. You can respond to this column at juleswitcovercomcast.net.)
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