WASHINGTON: US President Barack Obama outlined on Thursday how he intended to work with the new, Republican-dominated Congress, agreeing with the lawmakers on some issues and disagreeing where necessary.

“While I’m sure we’ll continue to disagree on some issues that we’re passionate about, I’m eager to work with Congress over the next two years to get the job done,” he said in a message released by his office.

Republicans gained control of both chambers of the US Congress — the House of Representatives and the Senate — in Tuesday’s election and told the president not to expect congressional support on issues they differ with.

“It doesn’t make me mopey. It energises me, because it means that this democracy’s working,” Mr Obama said of his party’s defeat.

At a news conference on Wednesday, President Obama offered to seek compromises with the Republicans on trade deals, tax changes, infrastructure spending and an immigration overhaul.

But he indicated that on some issues he was ready to defy Congress.

One such issue is immigration and President Obama vowed to use his executive authority to change the nation’s immigration system, if he has to.

His remarks caused Republicans to say that while he was reaching out to them with one hand, he was “slapping them with the other”.

Republicans strongly oppose any change that relaxes the strict immigration system. President Obama pledged to reform the system during his first term, which ended in 2012, but failed to do so because of a strong Republican resistance.

At his news conference, Mr Obama made it obvious that he now planned to fulfil his promise to allow millions of undocumented immigrants to stay in the country.

And if Congress rejected his move, Mr Obama indicated that he would use his executive powers to do so.

“What I’m not going to do is just wait,” he said of action on immigration. “Let’s see what we can do lawfully through executive actions to improve the functioning of the system.”

Commenting on the president’s remarks, Republican Party Chairman Reince Priebus said Mr Obama did not get the message of Tuesday’s election.”

He said he wondered if the president was “detached or in denial?”

Published in Dawn, November 7th, 2014