During Barack Obama’s presidency, Joe Biden’s propensity for cutting deals with Mitch McConnell became a running source of aggravation for liberals. Now it will be the key to getting anything done at all.

“Some of the Democrats would say, ‘Joe always wants to make a deal. Joe always wants to make a deal.’ And I’m thinking: ‘Hell, yeah, that’s his job.’” Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) said in an interview Thursday. “Why wouldn’t he want to make a deal?”

Surely Biden would have preferred a Senate led by Chuck Schumer that could swiftly confirm his nominees and help shepherd an ambitious legislative agenda along with Speaker Nancy Pelosi. On paper, McConnell’s Republican Senate looks like a bad match for a Democratic White House under Biden, given McConnell’s single-minded effort to torpedo the previous Democratic president’s priorities.

But the dynamics have changed, provided that McConnell ekes out wins in Georgia runoffs and hangs on as majority leader and Biden finishes off President Donald Trump’s chances in the Electoral College over the coming days.

And perhaps most importantly, Biden and McConnell have a real relationship — forged over the years as Senate colleagues and combatants. McConnell was the only Senate Republican to attend the funeral for Biden’s son Beau in 2015, and he’s largely stayed away from GOP attacks on Biden’s other son, Hunter.

“They have negotiated big things before. They’ve come through some very hard and even bitter fights over judicial confirmations,” Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.), a close Biden ally, said in an interview. “But I think they’ve managed to stay friends or have a working, professional relationship even in the hardest of times.”

Biden confronts a potential Cabinet obstacle: Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell
BY THEODORIC MEYER, MEGAN CASSELLA, ALICE MIRANDA OLLSTEIN AND ALEX THOMPSON

McConnell and Biden may have reason to find some common ground. Under Trump, McConnell has already succeeded in his longtime goal of reshaping the judiciary; soon his role will shift to the most powerful Republican in Washington who must also defend a razor-thin majority. And Biden was elected running not on the most liberal agenda but in part on his ability to work with the other side, predicting “you’ll see an epiphany occur among many of my Republican friends” if Trump loses.

“I campaigned as a Democrat, but I will govern as an American president,” Biden told reporters Wednesday. “The presidency itself is not a partisan institution.”

Democratic officials are already acknowledging that their legislative ambitions are much smaller than they were a week ago, but they think there is room for agreement on things like a coronavirus aid package, infrastructure, higher education and rural broadband. Republicans mostly agree.

Both old bulls of the Senate before their time at the highest rungs of American politics, McConnell and Biden will have to rekindle their old give-and-take almost immediately. Biden’s entire Cabinet will be at the whims of whether McConnell even puts his nominees up for a vote, and his appointments are sure to be more centrist than if Schumer were in charge of the Senate.

There’s no hope of liberal icons like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren winning Cabinet confirmation — though that reality may also avoid intraparty fights among Democrats seeking to shape a Biden administration.

Some Republicans still grouse about the delays that Democrats put on Trump’s nominees, raising the prospect of a protracted fight right out of the gate for Biden as he staffs up amid a pandemic and economic crisis. GOP senators looking at a presidential run in 2024 will have further political incentive to gum up the works in a bid for the spotlight.

“Mitch McConnell will force Joe Biden to negotiate every single Cabinet secretary, every single district court judge, every single U.S. attorney with him,” said Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.). “My guess is we’ll have a constitutional crisis pretty immediately.” Subscribe on Google Podcasts
But Manchin argued that “this country doesn’t want lightning rods” in the Cabinet and that Biden and McConnell could effectively agree on a group of nonideological nominees that wouldn’t become all-out brawls between the two parties.

Things are certainly not all warm and fuzzy between McConnell and Biden. Biden took a shot at McConnell in September over Congress’ inability to pass a new coronavirus relief bill, warning that “states are in real trouble, and to quote my good friend Mitch McConnell, he said, ‘Let the states go bankrupt.’” McConnell said earlier this year that Biden would have to release more records to deal with the sexual misconduct allegation against him by former aide Tara Reade