WH says Biden talks to Obama, hits McConnell for criticism

White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Tuesday that President Joe Biden speaks with former President Barack Obama ‘regularly’ and pushed back on Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s assertion that Biden is no longer a moderate. 

‘I don’t think this will surprise you, but the president is not eager to be labeled by anyone in his party or certainly even by his friend, Mitch McConnell,’ Psaki said when asked about the Kentucky Republican saying ‘a moderate he is not’ about Biden, asserting he is now a member of the progressive wing of the Democratic Party. 

McConnell made the comments as he vowed to fight against Biden’s $2 trillion infrastructure plan, as he’s slammed it for containing too many left-wing goodies. 

White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Tuesday that President Joe Biden speaks with former President Barack Obama ‘regularly’ and pushed back on Senate Minority Mitch McConnell’s assertion that Biden is no longer a moderate 

FRIENDS? ‘I don’t think this will surprise you, but the president is not eager to be labeled by anyone in his party or certainly even by his friend, Mitch McConnell,’ Jen Psaki said at Tuesday’s briefing, after McConnell suggested Biden was now a progressive 

FRIENDS. ‘They speak regularly,’ Jen Psaki said of former President Obama (left) and President Joe Biden (right), photographed together in 2012. Psaki added that the White House wouldn’t read out their calls and so wouldn’t confirm they’d been speaking about the infrastructure bill 

Another reported asked Psaki if Biden had rang Obama to seek advice on how to get the behemoth package passed. 

‘They speak regularly,’ she answered. ‘They, of course, were president and vice president, but they are also friends and they share a bond of serving through eight years of the Obama-Biden administration, but also a personal friendship and kinship.’

‘He speaks with him regularly,’ she continued. ‘But we’re not going to read out those calls.’

White House readouts contain conversation topics that were addressed between the president and leaders on official calls.  

Psaki didn’t specifically say if Biden and Obama had talked about the infrastructure plan. 

Biden announced the plan Wednesday with a speech in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

It’s the administration’s top Congressional priority after the $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief bill that Biden signed in mid-March. 

On Monday, McConnell said that Biden’s infrastructure plan is ‘something we’re not going to do.’ 

However, as the minority leader, McConnell no longer controls what bills come to the floor. 

And on Monday, the Senate parliamentarian gave Democrats the option to again use budget reconciliation rules – meaning they can buck the 60-vote filibuster and pass the infrastructure package with just a majority of votes, which they have if the Senate Democratic caucus stands together. 

That may mean revising how the bill is financed.  

Biden pitched taking the corporate tax rate from 21 per cent to 28 per cent. 

It had stood at 35 per cent until former President Donald Trump signed the 2017 tax bill. 

Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, who’s become a pivotal swing vote in the 50-50 Senate, indicated he wanted to see the tax rate only hiked to 25 per cent. 

Psaki said Tuesday that Biden has been ‘encouraged by the openness we’ve heard from some who would identify as moderate Democrats or Republicans of discussing components of the package he’s proposed.’ 

‘And he’s looking forward to having that conversation,’ the press secretary added.