President Joe Biden issued a plea to Republicans and Speaker Kevin McCarthy to ‘treat each other with respect’ – as the GOP prepares to investigate him and his son Hunter.
He sat alongside McCarthy at the National Prayer Breakfast on Thursday, after their White House showdown over the debt limit, and said: ‘Let’s just sorta, kinda, join hands a little bit.
‘Let’s start treating each other with respect. That’s what Kevin and I are going to do. Not a joke.
‘We had a good meeting yesterday. I think we got to do it across the board. It doesn’t mean we’re going to agree – fight like hell. But let’s treat each other with respect.’
Republicans are planning to start their probe into the Biden family’s influence peddling and Hunter Biden’s foreign business deals after his State of the Union address next week.
Biden’s appeal to GOP sentiments came hours after Hunter sent letters to prosecutors, urging them to target critics who had shared his laptop with the media.
Biden’s call also came as both chambers of Congress have ratcheted up the partisan infighting.
Later in the day, House Republicans will hold a vote to kick Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, a practising Muslim, off the House Foreign Affairs Committee for her past comments critical of Israel.
The vote comes in retaliation after Democrats last year booted far-right GOP lawmakers from committees over their incendiary, violent remarks.
Biden didn’t answer DailyMail.com when asked about his call for respect, given the investigation his son is facing and the Omar vote.
But, in his remarks at the breakfast, he acknowledged that tensions were high.
‘Love thy neighbor as thyself. That’s the hardest one. I think. At least it’s hardest here,’ Biden said. ‘Didn’t used to be hard.’
‘I’ve been here a long time, but it seems to be getting harder. It’s easy to say. It’s hard to do,’ he added.
‘My prayer for this prayer breakfast is you started to see each other again, look at each other, travel with each other again. Argue like hell with each other again, but then still go to lunch together.’
Biden, who spent 36 years as a senator representing the state of Delaware, joked about his long service to the country.
‘I know I don’t look it – but I’ve done it for a few years,’ he said to much laughter.
Even as lawmakers came together Thursday morning in the Capitol complex, they prepared to take battle stations later today and in the days to come.
In addition to the vote on Omar’s removal, House Republicans are gearing up to go after the president’s son.
The House Oversight Committee has scheduled a February 8 hearing on Hunter Biden’s laptop and Twitter’s attempt to suppress a New York Post story on it.
The hearing will be the day after President Biden’s State of the Union address, in which he will lay out his vision for the country for the next year. He is expected to issue a call for bipartisanship.
Hunter’s legal team has gone on the offensive by sending letters to state and federal prosecutors urging criminal investigations into those who accessed and disseminated his personal data.
They also sent a separate letter that threatened Fox News host Tucker Carlson with a defamation lawsuit, The Washington Post reported.
