Senator Mitch McConnell slammed President Barack Obama in a press conference held on Thursday.
McConnell was unanimously chosen by the Republicans to be the Senate Majority Leader that morning, and made it clear that the next two years will be rocky.
"I've been very disturbed about the way the President has proceeded in the wake of the [mid-term] election," he said.
"Whether it was his intervention on net neutrality, his apparent decision to move ahead on immigration with executive orders, the rather ridiculous agreement with the Chinese, under which they basically have to do nothing for the next 16 years while we're losing jobs in this country as a result of the EPA's overregulation," McConnell explained.
"I had rather naively hoped that the President would look at the results of the election and come to the side of the political center, and do some business with us," he continued. "I hope he does at some point, but the early signs are not good."
The new Senate Minority Leader, Harry Reid, had a more hopeful outlook.
"This is not 'get even' time," he insisted. "I do not intend to run the Democratic caucus like the Republican caucus has been run in the minority. I am not going to do that."
Reid said he intends to take bipartisan bills and try to get them passed.
"We want to legislate; we're not for stalling," he continued. "We want to move on in the next Congress with a record of accomplishment."
The Republicans and President Obama have had a notoriously contentious relationship over the past six years, culminating in House Speaker John Boehner's decision to sue the President in June on abuse of power grounds. The lawsuit reached an impasse after two law firms overseeing the litigation dropped the case.
