WASHINGTON ― Labor Secretary Tom Perez suggested that Democrats should confront President-elect Donald Trump with the obstruction strategy Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) employed against President Barack Obama.
“We can hit him between the eyes with a 2-by-4 and treat him like Mitch McConnell treated Barack Obama,” Perez told the audience at The Huffington Post’s live Democratic National Committee debate on Wednesday.
Perez cited Trump’s nomination of Andy Puzder for labor secretary, a “low-road employer,” as evidence that Trump was already betraying his promise to help workers.
McConnell famously said in 2010, when he was minority leader, that Republicans needed to deliberately block the president in the hopes of making him fail.
“The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president,” McConnell said at the time.
Perez’s comments are notable because he articulated a steadfast strategy of resistance behind which Democrats have failed to unify.
In fact, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), the senior-most Democratic elected official, said in an interview earlier this month with HuffPost’s Amanda Terkel that preventing Trump’s re-election is not his priority.
“I wouldn’t call that my goal,” Schumer said. “My goal is to make sure that it’s easier for the middle class to stay in the middle class, and people trying to get there to get there. And that American values are not trampled on.”
Also on HuffPost
How will Donald Trump’s first 100 days impact YOU? Subscribe, choose the community that you most identify with or want to learn more about and we’ll send you the news that matters most once a week throughout Trump’s first 100 days in office. Learn more