[CTC] White House says Boehner resorting to ‘desperate act’ in trade push

[Arthur Stamoulis]

POLITICO Pro Trade 

White House says Boehner resorting to ‘desperate act’ in trade push

By Nick Gass 

5/5/15 3:14 PM EDT
President Barack Obama doesn’t need any presidential candidates to help him push his trade agenda, the White House said Tuesday.

The White House pushed back against remarks from House Speaker John Boehner, who has said that Obama needs to involve Hillary Clinton with his efforts to "fast-track" a Pacific trade deal through Congress. Press secretary Josh Earnest told reporters that the suggestion is “a pretty desperate act.”

“I think in the mind of the president, it’s the responsibility of the Speaker of the House to do his job and to pull together the votes that he needs to advance his agenda,” Earnest said. “The good news is, is that he has a Democratic president who shares at least one of those priorities and a Democratic president who signaled a willingness to make the case to members of Congress in his own party about why they should support bipartisan trade promotion authority legislation.”

The press secretary said “it seems a little early” for Boehner to suggest something like that “when you’ve got the majority in the House of Representatives.”

In his earlier remarks, Boehner told NBC’s “Meet the Press” that Obama needs Clinton’s help “in order to get Democrats, those in the House and Senate, to get this passed.”
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.citizenstrade.org/pipermail/ctcfield-citizenstrade.org/attachments/20150505/16d33a81/attachment.htm>