Reacting to President Barack Obama’s address to the nation Thursday night, former White House spokesman opined that Obama’s actions are “a big risk” as he looks to bring bipartisanship to the forefront during his final two years in office. Carney was without criticism for Republicans, unsurprisingly, saying it’s easier to say the president is acting like an “emperor” than to actually do something.

Carney: “I want to address a point here. I hear the Speaker [Gingrich] and I hear others on the Republican side saying this is illegal, unconstitutional. What you don’t hear is legal experts and constitutional experts saying that because they won’t likely succeed in a legal challenge as we saw earlier on CNN, and they probably know it. But they want to cast this as a part of general assault against the president as acting lawlessly, as an emperor because that’s a little easier as an attack point than explaining why they haven’t acted on this priority that the majority of the people in the country think is important.”

“Having said that, this is a big risk for the president. He has no question created a major conflict with this Congress just as it’s coming into power and that could mean a lot of fights from here the next few years.”