Obama Pool Report on Meeting With Congressional Leaders

Print Pool Report #6
Jan. 5, 2009

After his afternoon meeting with Sen. Reid, President-elect Obama sat down for a bi-partisan meeting with a group of lawmakers in the LBJ room of the Capitol. Two waves of reporters and photographers came in at the beginning, and Obama gave remarks during the second wave. Here they are, from the TV pool report:

"Let me make a real quick comment.  I'm honored that cong leadership taking the time to meet with me, with all the things we have on the plate here.  Main purpose of today's meeting is to emphasize that , where in the past sometimes we fought about issues in terms of  republican democrat we are in one of those periods in American history where we don't have republican or democratic problems, we have American problems.  The American people I think are counting on us to act swiftly, swiftly boldly but responsibly in dealing with these issues.  And I think that my commitment as the incoming president is going to be to reach out across the aisle to both chambers to listen and not just talk , to not just try to dictate but try to try to create a genuine partnership so that we are actually doing the peoples business at this time of extraordinary difficulty for a lot of folks.

"And I've already met with speaker Pelosi and Harry Reid today , I have called the leadership here after my election just to let them know that I want to make sure I'm being as cooperative as possible and that we are delivering jobs, economic growth and prosperity for all of our constituents and one of things that I want to also emphasize is that I come into office having served with my colleagues in the senate. Having gotten to know many of my colleagues in the House I know that regardless of our positions and our parties everybody has the interest of their constituents at heart.  Everybody is motivated by doing what is best for this country and we may have some disagreements but I think it is going to be possible for us to work out those disagreements in an atmosphere of civility and comity and that is going to be my goal and I hope to be able to set that tone throughout my presidency.  So.  All right.: