House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) on Tuesday called for lawmakers to find common ground and pointed to "education reform" as a possible point of agreement with President Obama.
"I'm hoping that education would certainly be one [policy] that we could work together on. I know that initially the president himself embraced reforming education. I know his secretary of education has also been an advocate for that," said Cantor on CBS's "Evening News."
The majority leader was responding to questioning on whether there was specific legislation that could both receive support from the administration and potentially pass in the House.
House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) questioned whether the president had the "guts" to move on entitlement reform and expressed doubts about Obama's willingness to tackle other tough issues, during a meeting with television reports and anchors Tuesday morning,
reported CBS News.
"The biggest challenge in dealing with the president is that he never had the courage to take on his own party when it came to the kind of entitlement changes that need to occur," he said. Boehner later added, "I think he'd like to deal with it. But to do the heavy lifting that needs to be done, I don't think he's got the guts to go do it."
When pressed on Boehner's comments, Cantor said, "I didn't hear the Speaker say that."
"What I would say, is there's a lot of frustration, I know, about the lack of results here in Washington and we do have to redouble our efforts and I believe strongly set aside differences and find where the common ground is," he said.
Cantor also addressed a perceived shift in the Republican Party's messaging since Obama won reelection.
"I think that what you're seeing is a Republican Party that says, you know, we have principles of self-reliance, of faith in the individual and family, instance on the accountability in government and these principles can actually be put to work and connect with real challenges that people are facing in their everyday lives," he said.
