President Barack Obama's inability to work with the opposition is in stark contrast to President Bill Clinton, says former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.
"It’s amazing how the hard work that we did back in the '90s on welfare reform and on balancing the federal budget is such a contrast to the inability of President Obama to work with anybody," Gingrich said Sunday on 's
"The Cats Roundtable" on New York's WNYM-AM 970.
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"You have to give President Clinton some credit – as he learned as governor of Arkansas – that in a free society, you’ve got to find a way to work together, to listen to each other, to get things done," the Georgia Republican said. "It’s essential to have a president capable of working with the other party if you’re going to have America really work."
Both Clinton and Gingrich have said recently that
they worked together privately while sometimes battling bitterly in public. Obama, on the other hand, has shown little interest in working even with
members of his own party.
Gingrich joined other Republicans in condemning Obama's executive action last week that stopped deportations of up to 5 million illegal immigrants.
"The president lied to the American people," Gingrich told host John Catsimatidis. "What he is doing is not just prosecutorial discretion. He’s creating whole new program, setting up whole new bureaucracies, [and] is going to spend millions and millions of dollars without any authorization or appropriation."
Where Clinton recognized that the Constitution required him to work with Congress, Obama, in effect, is suspending the Constitution and defining the rules to fit his own personality, Gingrich said.
"It’s very dangerous as a precedent," Gingrich said. "Who knows what some future president might do with that kind of attitude?"
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