US President Barack Obama and leaders in the
House and Senate are due to hold cross-party
talks aimed at ending political gridlock in
Washington.
Friday's White House luncheon comes after the
Republicans won control of the Senate in
Tuesday's elections.
Mr Obama, a Democrat, and heads of both
parties in the House of Representatives and
Senate will explore avenues of compromise after
years of rancour.
Republicans have called the victory a rebuke of
Mr Obama's policies.
On Friday, the US president will be joined by 16
senior legislators including presumptive next
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and
Republican House Speaker John Boehner.
Ahead of the meeting, Mr Obama said they would
discuss areas in which it is "possible to work
together", including manufacturing, trade and
education.
"All these issues are ones in which there's a
strong possibility of bipartisan co-operation as
long as we set politics aside," he said.
McConnell will lead the Senate after
Republicans won control of the chamber
On Tuesday, the Republicans won control of the
Senate and solidified their hold on the lower
House of Representatives.
With the Republicans in control of both houses of
Congress, the party can complicate, if not block
completely, Mr Obama's agenda in the last two
years of his tenure in the White House.
Control of the Senate could also enable the
Republicans to stymie his ability to name new
federal judges, cabinet members and senior
government officials.
Barack Obama has said he's prepared to sit down
and drink bourbon with Kentucky's Mitch
McConnell, and is even prepared to allow the
leader of the House, John Boehner, to let him win
at golf again.
So on what other issues might we see progress?
Mr Obama has wavered over the Keystone XL
pipeline that will run from Canada down to the
Gulf of Mexico for fear of offending
environmental campaigners, even though business
is desperate for the measure and it would create
jobs.
The president could trade that for Republican
support to back greater spending on
infrastructure - roads, bridges and the like.
Corporate tax reform is firmly on the Republican
agenda, but the president would not want to
concede this without something back. Perhaps it
would be movement on increasing the minimum
wage, something that was backed in ballot
initiatives in a number of Republican states on
the night of the mid-term elections.
Obama and Republicans playing nicely for now.
The new Congress will be sworn in on 3 January.
As the dust settled following the election, Mr
Obama and senior Republicans publicly pledged
to work together to end the political gridlock that
has virtually paralysed Congress and that reached
its culmination with the shutdown of the US
government in a budget stalemate last year.
The mid-term election campaign was
characterised by widespread frustration expressed
by voters about the inability of the two parties to
work together.
In the wake of the Republican gains, Mr
McConnell vowed to make the Senate function
and pass bills, after sessions that were the least
productive in the chamber's history.
Mr Obama on Wednesday said he was "eager to
work with the new Congress to make the next
two years as productive as possible".
To the Americans who voted for the Republicans,
the president said: "I hear you."
But on immigration, he warned he would act on
his own to reduce deportations.
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