CNN's Dana Bash used the notion of bipartisanship as a cudgel to beat Democrats over the head with during an interview with White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki.
February 28, 2021

CNN's Dana Bash used the notion of bipartisanship as a cudgel to beat Democrats over the head with during an interview with White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki this Sunday. Bash must have been asleep during the entire Obama administration to even ask a question like this one.

BASH: So President Biden's sweeping $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package is now in the Senate, as you know. A cornerstone of his campaign that he ran, his presidential campaign, was bipartisan cooperation. He called it a mandate from the American people.

He got zero Republican votes in the House. It looks like he may get zero in the Senate. Can you point to one concession that President Biden is making to this package to try to win Republican support?

Bash should know full well how Republicans have operated in the past. They pretend they want to work with Democrats only to stall legislation, water it down, and then refuse to vote for it in the end anyway. That was their modus operandi during the Obama administration, and there's no indication that they've changed their ways now that Biden has taken office.

Psaki, to her credit, responded by telling Bash that President Biden was more than willing to sit down with Republicans and listen to their ideas if they want to actually improve the legislation, something we never saw with Trump, but they haven't seen "a substantive big proposal in response back from Republicans."

Bash again pressed Psaki on whether Biden was willing to do more than just listen and change the legislation to address their concerns, and Psaki reminded Bash that the legislation has seventy percent support from the public, and with eleven million Americans about to lose unemployment insurance in the middle of March, they can't afford to wait any longer to get the relief bill passed.

The media has shown time and time again that they've learned nothing from the eight years of the Obama administration about how Republicans operate.

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