'Me? Blocking?': Boehner Confronted by Univision Anchor on Immigration Reform

House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) is maintaining that President Obama still hasn’t proven that Congress can trust him enough to move an immigration bill forward.

“Me? Blocking?” Boehner said incredulously at a press conference today when confronted by Univision anchor Jorge Ramos on why he was “blocking immigration reform.”

“Well, the issue of immigration reform is an issue that I’ve talked about for 18 months, starting the day after the 2012 election and the fact that Congress needs to deal with this. And I made it clear we’re not going to deal with the Senate bill, a 1,300-page bill that no one has read. And we’re not going to do it,” Boehner said.

“I think that moving in a piece-by-piece fashion on this in a common-sense way is the way to do this. But the president, the president has responsibility here as well. And when he continues to ignore Obamacare, his own law, 38 unilateral delays, he reduces the confidence of the American people in his willingness to implement an immigration law the way we would pass it,” he added. “So the president has to rebuild this trust if we’re going to be able to do this.”

Ramos continued hammering at Boehner, arguing that the power was in Boehner’s hands to move a bill now.

“I just gave you an answer. There’s nobody more interested in fixing this problem than I am,” Boehner said.

“You can do it,” Ramos protested.

“But a president — no, listen. President…” Boehner began before Ramos said again, “But Mr. Speaker, you can do it.”

“I appreciate your opinion. Thank you,” Boehner said before moving to the next question.

The Speaker was also asked at today’s press conference how the Tea Party is faring in this election year.

“There’s a lot of good candidates running all across the country, of all different stripes. I thought the election went well. We’re going to have good candidates on the ballot,” he said of the first primaries. “But I’m not going to enter into this distinction between the Tea Party and Republicans because it’s a distinction you’re going to have a hard time finding.”