© Reuters. U.S. President Joe Biden speaks to the U.S. governors and their spouses for a black-tie dinner within the East Room of the White Home in Washington, D.C., U.S. February 11, 2023. REUTERS/Ken Cedeno
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(This Feb. 11 story has been corrected to say that the identify of the New Jersey Governor is Phil Murphy, not Chris Murphy, in paragraph 9)
By Andrea Shalal
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Joe Biden appealed to Republican and Democratic governors on Saturday to proceed working throughout political divides to enhance People’ lives and rebuild the economic system after the hardships introduced by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Talking at a black-tie dinner on the White Home attended by Vice President Kamala Harris and 31 governors, Biden mentioned the passage of legal guidelines on investing in infrastructure and home manufacturing of semiconductors by each Republicans and Democrats was proof of “some bipartisan progress.”
“I hope we will get a bit bit – I will attempt – a bit bit much less partisan and work on issues that we are able to actually get accomplished to vary folks’s lives,” Biden mentioned after days of governors’ conferences in Washington.
He mentioned he was nonetheless “able to struggle, as you all are,” and Republicans and Democrats wouldn’t at all times agree, however after they labored collectively, it made a distinction.
Republican Governor Spencer Cox of Utah, vice-chair of the Nationwide Governors Affiliation, mentioned it was “very symbolic” to have Republicans and Democrats “breaking bread collectively” on the White Home.
Cox added that he believed nearly all of People wished to see extra collaboration throughout the political aisle.
“That is what’s lacking in our nation,” he mentioned, including, “It is arduous to hate up shut.”
Notably absent from the dinner was Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, a Republican who has challenged Biden’s agenda on a variety of fronts, from gun security to LGBTQ rights.
The bipartisan legal guidelines handed final 12 months have been gamechangers for the U.S. economic system, New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy, a Democrat who chairs the affiliation, instructed a governors’ occasion on the White Home on Friday.
The power of the states to work collectively on different points akin to psychological well being disproved the “narrative that politics has gotten utterly divisive,” he added.
