So we had to move fast. And I said to Speaker Boehner — or then Leader Boehner — I said, I want to come up to your caucus and talk. And as I’m driving over, he puts out a press release saying, we’re against it. (Laughter.) We hadn’t talked to anybody yet. So then you have to make a decision, all right, if the notion is, is that there’s nothing to talk about — in the meantime, I’m looking at the weekly unemployment numbers and we’re losing 800,000 jobs a month, I just have to act.

And on the other hand, you got something like immigration reform, where we did actually do a — I stayed out of it so that I would not be polarizing. You had Republicans over in the Senate working with Democrats to negotiate something — Dick Durbin was involved with this; a young man named Marco Rubio was deeply involved in it — they get a bipartisan bill, it passed by a bipartisan vote, but then this reaction from the base that had been stirred up kills it. And that’s when we start taking executive action.

So I guess what my point is, is that bipartisanship is not a virtue if we don’t do anything and we just leave problems unsolved. Bipartisanship is a virtue if we, both sides, are determined that, look, we have a problem, we may differ on how we solve it, but let’s sit down and negotiate. And there’s never been an issue in Washington that I haven’t been willing to take a half loaf or a quarter loaf. And sometimes I’ve gotten attacked by the left viciously for doing so, but I think that’s how you govern.