White House Reacts To McConnell's "Stunt"

President Obama’s top spokesman said Tuesday that an effort by Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to force a vote on the president’s jobs bill was nothing more than a “political stunt.”

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney added that the move by McConnell “was a very disingenuous attempt to draw attention away from the fact that this president is calling on members of Congress, both houses, to act on jobs and the economy.”

Earlier in the day, McConnell tried to attach the jobs bill to a measure aimed at cracking down on currency manipulation by the Chinese government. However, top Democratic Senator Harry Reid (D-Nev.) blocked the effort by utilizing a procedure known as “filling the tree,” in which the Majority Leader can forbid any amendments from being added to a bill.

Knowing full well that Reid doesn’t have enough votes to pass the jobs plan, McConnell openly acknowledged that the move was made to embarrass Senate Democrats.

Senate GOP Conference Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) later called out Reid for stifling the attempt.

“In his address on September 8, the president said at least 17 times that Congress must pass his jobs bill,” said Alexander in a statement. “He’s repeated that demand nearly every day since. Yet the bill has just been sitting on the Democratic Senate leader’s desk. Senator McConnell is trying to give the president the vote he requested. How can the Democratic leader now in good conscience object to the vote the president has been asking for?”

Carney told reporters that the White House expects there to be a legitimate and robust debate over the bill in Congress.

But, he said, “What (Americans) recoil from is the kind of gamesmanship we saw today in the Senate.”