Despite their differences in policy, President Joe Biden and Governor Spencer Cox of Utah came together on Saturday to advocate for greater bipartisanship and less partisanship in politics.
Since his election to the U.S. Senate in 1972, Biden has been involved in politics. “Politics has gotten too personally bitter,” he stated. “Things aren’t the way they were.” During a black-tie White House luncheon honoring the nation’s governors and their wives, the Democratic president made remarks and offered a toast.
We’ve always done things together, so that’s what makes Biden “feel good” about hosting the governors. We make sure to make our points, and we fight like crazy. We are aware of our employer at the end of the day. Getting things done is the goal.
Biden was followed by Cox, a Republican and the head of the National Governors Association, to the lectern in the State Dining Room, which was located over an imposing image of Abraham Lincoln.
The association “harkens back to another time, another era, when we did work together across partisan lines, when appearing with someone from the other side of the aisle was not politically dangerous, and we have to keep this, we have to maintain this, we cannot lose this,” stated the governor of Utah.
Cox is the leader of the “Disagree Better” campaign, which attempts to lessen division. Since he and Biden are both up for reelection this year, he had made a joke earlier in the show suggesting that by showing up at the White House together, they may be committing “mutually assured destruction.”
Governors, he said Biden, “know just a very little bit of the incredible burden that weighs on your shoulders” in their capacity as state chief executives. We don’t know what it must be like to have to make the decisions you do, but we can feel some of the burden, so tonight we honor you.
Biden recalled a time when legislators would debate during the day and share a meal together at night. He is currently caught in a deadlock over immigration policy, government spending, and assistance for Israel and Ukraine with the Republican-controlled House.
Cox continued by saying that he learned to pray for the nation’s leader from his parents.
“We pray for you and your family every night, Mr. President, and I want you to know that,” he continued. “We pray for your success because, in the event that you succeed, the United States of America will also succeed, and tonight, we will always put Americans first. Thank you.”
The association’s vice chairman, Democratic governor of Colorado, Jared Polis, also made a toast.
“We share a great deal of similarities and a great deal of things that unite us as Americans for love of our nation and its citizens,” he remarked.
Among the governors seated among Cabinet secretaries and White House officials were Vice President Kamala Harris and her spouse, Doug Emhoff. Among them was Gov. Doug Burgum of North Dakota, who withdrew his candidacy to challenge Biden as the Republican nominee in December.
Diners enjoyed house-made burrata cheese, cod almandine or beef braciole for their dinner, and lemon meringue tart for dessert paired with limoncello ice cream.
Following dinner, there was a concert by country singer Trisha Yearwood in the East Room.
During a separate meeting on Friday at the White House, Biden and Harris addressed the governors, who were in Washington for their yearly winter meeting.