“Jessica, I am not a dictator, I’m the president,” he said while speaking to reporters in the White House Press Briefing Room. “Ultimately, if Mitch McConnell or John Boehner say we need to go to catch a plane, I can’t have Secret Service block the doorway.”
“I know that this has been some of the conventional wisdom that’s been floating around Washington, and that somehow–even though most people agree that I’m being reasonable, that most people agree I’m presenting a fair deal–the fact that they don’t take it means that somehow I should do a Jedi mind-meld with these folks and convince them to do what’s right,” he added.
Obama went on to say that those leaders are elected and have their own responsibilities. For his part, the president said he the best he can do is “make the best possible case for why we need to do the right thing” and “speak to the American people about the consequences of the decisions that Congress is making or the lack of the decision-making by Congress.”
“But ultimately it’s a choice they make, and this idea that somehow there’s a secret formula or secret sauce to get speaker Boehner or Mitch McConnell to say ‘You know what Mr. President, you’re right’… I think if there was a secret way to do that, I would have tried it. I would have done it.”