Dan Senor blasts Obama for meeting with MoveOn, ignores meeting with CEOs

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Dan Senor, a top adviser to former GOP nominee Mitt Romney, on Sunday lashed out at President Barack Obama for meeting with progressive groups like MoveOn.org after winning the election, but ignored similar meetings with business leaders.

Appearing on a Sunday panel on ABC’s This Week, Senor said that the president’s first offer to avoid the fiscal cliff by ending the Bush-era tax cuts for the richest Americans, $400 billion in targeted spending cuts to earned benefit programs like Medicare and several stimulus measures was as extreme Republicans demanding Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-WI) controversial budget plan and a 20 percent cut in marginal tax rates.

“I think he has spent more time on the phone this week, from what I understand, with Steve Israel, the chairman of the Democrats’ campaign arm, than he did with [House Speaker] John Boehner,” Senor complained. “He’s spending time with [AFL-CIO president] Richard Trumka and MoveOn.org. You tell me what he’s telling those hard-left groups about his position and how he can walk back to something more reasonable.”

“He also met with quite a number of business leaders, a lot of CEOs, a lot of Republicans this week,” former Obama adviser Steven Rattner noted. “He’s trying to do something different than he’s done before, which is take his message outside the beltway, outside of Capitol Hill and try and bring it to the people. And I’m totally in favor of that.”

“But look, in the negotiations a year and almost a half ago, Speaker Boehner was reported to have offered $800 billion in revenue,” Rattner added. “The president has asked for $1.6 trillion of revenue. There’s a bid, there’s an ask. If the Republicans want to get a deal done, let’s sit down and try to find some place in the middle.”

Watch this video from ABC’s This Week, broadcast Dec. 2, 2012.