An emboldened House Speaker John Boehner, fresh off Tuesday’s midterms when Republicans secured a bigger House majority and a GOP controlled Senate, warned President Barack Obama if he tried to go around Congress and take executive action on immigration he will get “burned.”
“I’ve made clear to the President if he acts unilaterally on his own outside of his authority he will poison the well and there will be no chance for immigration reform moving forward in this Congress. It’s as simple as that,” Boehner said.
In his first news conference on Capitol Hill since House Republicans picked up at roughly a dozen seats in Tuesday’s midterm elections, the Speaker flashed a combative tone.
Heated Republicans return fire at Obama
He brushed off the notion that the President could take some initial steps on his own on immigration, but could later work with Congress to pass a more comprehensive plan.
“When you play with matches, you take the risk of burning yourself and he’s going to burn himself if he continues to go down that path,’ Boehner said.
Boehner said he wants to work with the President on areas they can agree on, but said, “he needs to put politics aside and rebuild trust.”
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He insisted that his pledge, along with Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell, to repeal Obamacare wasn’t in conflict with his pledge to work with the President, but in response to continued opposition to the law that he heard around the country on the law.
In a reference to the President’s press conference a day earlier when he reiterated plans to take executive action to allow some undocumented workers to remain in the U.S., an incredulous Boehner said “the President said I listened to what happened on Tuesday night - really?”
