Obama won’t hesitate to use veto power, spokesman says

White House press secretary Josh Earnest said early Thursday that finding common ground between Republicans and Democrats would be the “focal point” of White House efforts but warned that President Obama will not hesitate to use his veto power.

“The president does have a pen on his desk, and I’m confident that he’ll be in a position, where he’ll have to veto some legislation where Democrats and Republicans are not able to find some common ground,” he said on MSNBC.

“But the president is eager, however, to actually sign pieces of legislation that have strong bipartisan support.”

{mosads}Earnest has made the rounds on cable news networks since the Republicans won back control of the Senate on Tuesday. He said the president is looking forward to sitting down with congressional leaders on Friday to hear the new Republican majority’s agenda and added that he hopes newfound power will give the GOP a change of heart.

“Over the past six years, Republicans have considered it to be in their clear political self-interest to try to block every single thing that the president supports,” he said. “Maybe now, they will see it as in their interest to really move on common ground.”

Shifting away from the midterm elections, Earnest said that finding a diplomatic solution on nuclear talks with Iran would be a better outcome than military strikes. Those talks have a Nov. 24 deadline, and international diplomats are feverishly working towards a resolution.

“You can take a military strike, but that is inherently temporary. Iran is of course going to try to rebuild that capability,” he said. “If you reach a diplomatic solution, a negotiated solution, that allows the international community to have some clear visibility of what their plans are, that’s the way you can assure everybody of the peaceful nature of the Iran nuclear program.”