President Obama huddled Thursday with Senate Democrats at their retreat in Baltimore in what the White House billed as an opportunity to go over the agenda for the upcoming legislative session.
Obama planned to discuss the “priorities that he has both for our economy and for keeping Americans safe around the globe,” White House press secretary Josh Earnest said.
{mosads}The points of discussion will include Obama’s recently unveiled plans for two years of free community college, strengthening the housing market, paid sick leave, and cybersecurity legislation. But the president is also planning to discuss his hope of pursuing a package combining corporate tax reform and new infrastructure spending.
And, Earnest said, Obama would update lawmakers on the latest news from the terrorist attack on a satirical newspaper last week in Paris.
The meeting will take place entirely behind closed doors, and the White House said it didn’t expect to provide many additional details about the conversation. In the past, most — but not all — of the president’s appearances at House and Senate Democratic retreats have been at least partly open to members of the media.
“Some of that’s because the president wants to spend some time talking about the State of the Union address, some aspects of which he may not discuss publicly yet,” Earnest said.
Before heading to the Camden Yards hotel where he was meeting with the full caucus, Obama had lunch with Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.), who was welcoming lawmakers to her hometown.
The pair snagged lunch at Charmington’s Cafe, a Baltimore coffee shop, where Obama called on Congress to mandate all employees get access to at least seven days of paid sick leave per year. The president also said he wanted lawmakers to look at ways they could provide employees more flexibility to take time off to care for sick family members or themselves.
“This is an issue that spans geography, spans demographics,” Obama said. “Working families, middle-class folks all across the country are concerned about it. And the good news is we really can do something about it.”