Republican Sen. John Barrasso (Wyo.) last week said he wants to make President Biden a “one-half-term president” in 2022 by ensuring that Democrats no longer have complete control in Washington.
“I’m looking forward to a very successful 2022,” Barrasso said during a breakfast discussion hosted by The Ripon Society on Thursday.
“I want to make Joe Biden a one-half-term president, and I want to do that by making sure they no longer have the House, Senate and White House,” he added.
When asked if Barrasso was advocating for removing Biden from office before his first term is up, Laura Mengelkamp, the senator’s communications director, told The Hill he was referring to the GOP winning the House and Senate next year, which would take away Democratic control of Washington and help Republicans win the White House in the next general election cycle.
“Sen. Barrasso’s remarks discussed his work to make sure Republicans take both the Senate and House in 2022, which would be the best way to effectively stop President Biden from moving his liberal agenda post-midterms, and position Republicans to win the White House in 2024,” Mengelkamp told The Hill.
Barrasso noted that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) made similar comments about wanting former President Obama to be a one-term president on the eve of the 2010 midterm elections.
“Mitch McConnell came under a lot of criticism for saying at one point he wanted to make sure that Barack Obama was a one-term president,” Barrasso said.
White House deputy press secretary Andrew Bates responded to Barrasso’s comment in a statement to The Hill, writing that Biden “looks forward to continuing to deliver for the American people, continuing to make government work for them again, and continuing to bring our country together – after having reduced cases of the worst public health crisis in over a century by more than 90%, signed historic economic legislation that helped fuel unprecedented job growth for any administration’s first 100 days in office, protected Americans’ health care, and restored our leadership and competitiveness in the world.”
Barrasso, who serves as chairman of the Senate Republican Conference, also attacked the Senate Democratic Conference for not making efforts to attract Republican cooperation, accusing the party of “heading as far to the left as they can.”
“There’s a 50-50 Senate, which should be a mandate to move to the middle. Instead, they seem to be heading as far to the left as they can,” Barrasso said.
Barrasso also weighed in on the infrastructure battle transpiring in Washington as the White House and congressional negotiators work to land a bipartisan package.
A chief sticking point among the parties has been how to pay for the infrastructure investments. Barrasso, during the breakfast discussion, advocated for an infrastructure package to be paid for with repurposed COVID-19 funding, which the White House previously said it would not lean toward.
“There’s a lot of money out there that, as [Sen.] Roy Blunt [R-Mo.], who’s on the Appropriations Committee, is pretty clear about, is orphaned money from the first five bipartisan coronavirus relief bills that are pretty specific in how they need to be spent — and it’s never going to be spent,” Barrasso said.
“We have to repurpose that. There’s a lot of money in the more recent Joe Biden coronavirus bill that is either unneeded or unrelated to coronavirus that is meant to basically pay off and bail out big cities. The money isn’t even going to go out for another couple of years,” he added.
Sylvan Lane contributed to this report.