President-elect Joe Biden’s incoming deputy chief of staff, Jen O’Malley Dillon, is not holding back on her opinion of Republican lawmakers amid the president-elect’s call for unity.
During an interview with Glamour, O’Malley Dillon weighed in on Glennon Doyle’s comment on the “redefining of compromise.”
“Yes, exactly. And frankly, that’s what we need. The president-elect was able to connect with people over this sense of unity. In the primary, people would mock him, like, ‘You think you can work with Republicans?’ I’m not saying they’re not a bunch of f***ers,” she said.
O’Malley Dillon went on to call Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) “terrible.”
She emphasized Biden still believes he can work with lawmakers to get things done.
“But this sense that you couldn’t wish for that, you couldn’t wish for this bipartisan ideal? He rejected that. From start to finish, he set out with this idea that unity was possible, that together we are stronger, that we, as a country, need healing, and our politics needs that too,” O’Malley Dillion said.
She explained she believes people “want to see us moving in a path forward”
O’Malley Dillon went on, “And this overhang of this negative, polarized electorate that politics has created is the thing that I think we can break down.”
She told Doyle that compromise is about having tough conversations.
“Like Joe Biden says all the time, ‘Great leadership starts with listening.’ It’s challenging for us to do that right now, because of how polarized we are. But politics breaks down to one-on-one conversations and not being afraid to talk,” O’Malley Dillon said.
She reiterated compromise is a good thing.
“The atmosphere in the world now is like, ‘Oh, if you compromise, you don’t believe in something.’ No, it’s: I believe in it so much that I’m going to work to find a path we can both go down together,” O’Malley Dillon continued.