President Barack Obama ripped into Republicans, often mocking them, as he fired up the Democratic Party’s winter meeting Friday.
The party may have lost control of the Senate in November, and saw Republicans gain their biggest House of Representatives majority in decades, yet the mood at the event was relentlessly upbeat. And Obama helped.
He recalled how for years, Republicans have warned of “doom and gloom and death panels and Armageddon.”
Yet the economy is rebounding, gasoline prices have fallen and consumer confidence is up.
“The sky hasn’t fallen. Chicken Little is quiet,” he said of Republicans.
His noted the comments of Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., who two years ago said, “We need a Republican Party that shows up on the South Side of Chicago, and shouts at the top of our lungs: ‘We are the party of jobs and opportunity.’’’
Obama, who lived on the South Side before the White House, laughed.
He called Paul’s views “encouraging.”
Obama noted he was just in Chicago this week, and “I guarantee you that Senator Paul would be welcome there...We are a friendly bunch. I mean, it’s a little strange if people show up and just start shouting at the top of their lungs, but we’re friendly and it would be okay.”
Obama’s biggest cheers came as he rattled off what he termed Democratic accomplishments. He chuckled about Republicans, saying they’re now claiminig credit for the economy. After all, he said, Republicans maintain the economy has improved because they now have more control.
"I didn't know that's how the economy works but... maybe?" he said.
Watch out, Obama warned. "The new plan is to re-brand themselves as the party of the middle class. I am not making this up
But he added while, "I am encouraged they are speaking about middle class and about wages...there is this old saying, you can't just talk the talk. You've got to walk the walk."
The president did cite areas where the two parties might find common ground, like criminal justice issues.
"There's nothing I like more than an opposition party that's willing to engage with us and work with us on these issues,” he said. “Maybe they've got different ideas, but genuine ideas."
POTUS tells Republicans to stop trying to take away health insurance and deport families, saying they're trying to "bamboozle folks."
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