Valerie Jarrett, a senior advisor to President Barack Obama, was candid about the administration’s “disappointments” over its tenure in office, reports CNSNews.
“When I look back at the last six years of unfinished business, one of my largest frustrations and disappointments is that we were not able to get comprehensive immigration reform,” Jarrett told the City Club of Chicago on June 11.
“Overwhelmingly the American people support comprehensive immigration reform, just like another disappointment, to be honest with you, is that overwhelmingly the American people think we have to have more sensible gun laws,” she continued. “The fact that we weren’t able to get Congress to support either one is really very, very disappointing.”
Following the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut in 2012, the U.S. Senate voted on bills that would have expanded background checks to private sales, banned certain semiautomatic black rifles and “high capacity” magazines. Not one of the bills cleared the upper house thanks to a Republican led filibuster.
“By the same vein, it’s also a period in the presidency where you start to realize that everything you hoped and dreamed for when we first started might not come to fruition,” said Jarrett. “But if you take an issue like healthcare reform, something like seven presidents before President Obama laid the foundation for healthcare reform and then he was able to take it over the finish line. And so, we hope for issues like sensible gun legislation as well as comprehensive immigration reform that the next president will have no choice but to take it up.”