Senator DeMint

Senator. Jim DeMint (Republican-S.C.) said that President Barack Obama's administration is "trying to divide" Senate Republicans by selectively calling a few of them to lobby them on legislative issues.DeMint, a one-time friend of Obama's when the president was a senator, said White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel has been seeking out GOP senators to press them on healthcare reform and other topics.Right now their whole strategy just seems like they want to divide us," DeMint said. "The president has had his people calling different Republicans. It's not a matter of going to Mitch McConnell and saying, 'We need to work together.' They're trying to just pick off a few Republicans."The South Carolina Republican specifically mentioned White House outreach to Republicans on healthcare reform legislation. Obama's signature issue during his first year in the Oval Office.

DeMint made his comments hours before Obama was to deliver his State of the Union address, in which he will lay out his agenda moving forward.On healthcare and other things, too, Rahm Emanuel has been calling different Republicans, and we really want them to work with us, which is going to require going through our leadership and coming up with some ideas so we can move ahead," DeMint said. They seem to just want these huge, FDR-like comprehensive bills, and the country wants us to slow down and go step by step.

Neither party should delay or obstruct every single bill just because they can," Obama said in his address. "And if the Republican leadership is going to insist that 60 votes in the Senate are required to do any business at all in this town -- a supermajority -- then the responsibility to govern is now yours as well. Just saying no to everything may be good short-term politics, but it's not leadership." Republicans responded immediately by saying they've been trying to work with the president all along, but to no avail. Democrats, meanwhile, said the president was dead on.

Senator DeMint

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