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Blunt: Obama Should 'Legislate Realistically'

January 20, 2013

Sen. Roy Blunt (R., Mo.) issued a challenge Sunday to President Obama as he prepares to start his second term: lead. He particularly criticized Obama's move to relaunch his re-election campaign as a nonprofit advocacy group for his second-term agenda, saying it undercut an opportunity to solve the country's bigger problems.

"The President said during the campaign that you can't solve problems from inside Washington," he said. "There's only guy who can actually lead in Washington in a way that can find a solution to big problems and that's the president. I was surprised this week to see him transition his campaign committee into an ongoing campaign-style effort to have an impact on the Washington debate, because it doesn't seem to me the lesson of the first term would be that worked out very well ... I'd like to see the president take advantage of this second term and divided government, a good time to solve big problems.

"He likes the executive approach a lot better than the legislative approach," Blunt added. "You can't get all that far with executive orders. You've got to legislate, and you've got to legislate realistically."

Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace also asked Blunt about gun control legislation in the interview.

"Let's do things that will make a difference here," he said. "We had bans on things for a decade that didn't make a difference at all ... I think we ought to talk about [background checks]. Let's look at that and see."

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