Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel explained Sunday that the reason his former boss, President Barack Obama, has been unable to bridge the so-called “partisan divide” as he promised to on the campaign trail is because the overarching goal of Republicans is to destroy the president’s prospects for re-election.
“I’ve been through people that brought in impeachment, et cetera,” the former chief-of-staff to President Obama said on ABC’s “This Week with Christiane Amanpour.”
“Is it bad? Absolutely, there’s gridlock now. Let’s take his example, Christiane. He’s offered a plan, as it relates to dealing with the net — the deficit panel and the debt panel. He’s offered a plan, OK. And what they’ve offered is an ideology. He has offered a grand bargain and they have refused to bargain. The Senate leader for the Republican Party said my number one goal is to make President Obama a one-term president. Now, that’s very hard to bring bipartisanship when that’s the operating principle of the other side.”
According to Emanuel, Obama has a different set of priorities.
“Is it bad? Absolutely,” he said. “But where does the origination of the poison start from? And so when you have the opposition – and President Obama doesn’t walk around saying my number one goal is to beat the Republicans, my number one goal is to help America. Their number one goal is a political one. His number one goal is how do we make ourselves competitive in the 21st century? Those are two different operating premises, Christiane.”
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