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After word reached the White House staff who had gathered for a drink in the hotel bar one night last week that President Obama was working out an aggressive climate deal with the Chinese president, the first toast was to the planet.

The second was to the message they believed they were about to broadcast back home: that Obama can still check big things off his to-do list.

"We're not just amblin' off here," said one senior advisor traveling with the president on a weeklong tour of Asia and Australia that began with the surprising commitment with China to cut carbon pollution.

The tour began as a relaunch of sorts closing the books on a fall campaign season largely free of any real initiatives and highlighting Obama's agenda for his final two years in office.

The ambition might prove delusional. Weakened as the president is by the bruising he and his Democratic Party took in the midterm elections, there are serious questions about whether he can achieve anything with the GOP in control of Congress. Awaiting Obama in Washington are Republican leaders already preparing to curb his ambitions on climate, immigration and other issues the president has said he'll act on without lawmakers.

"Congress is going to stand up to the president, and the American people expect them to do that," Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah said Sunday on CBS' "Face the Nation."

For his part, Obama said Sunday in a news conference here that he will "build on the momentum" of the last week when he returns to the White House.

"He seems determined to take signature issues on the legacy he wants to leave and use his executive authority as effectively as he can" to act on them, said Kenneth Lieberthal, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and former Asia director in President Clinton's National Security Council. "That's going to get a lot of yelling and screaming from the other side of the aisle."

The clamor began right away. Congressional Republicans vented over the weekend about the president's deal with China and promise to reform immigration by executive fiat.

"This president, right now, is choosing friction, partisanship and accomplishment instead of cooperation," Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) said on "Fox News Sunday." "There's an opportunity for us to get some things done here, and instead, the president is going down this unilateral path."

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Obama's Asia tour relaunches his efforts on 'legacy' issues

By Sara Fischer, CNN

updated 5:56 PM EST, Sun November 16, 2014

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

(CNN) -- President Obama denied an accusation on Sunday that he had misled voters about his signature health care law in order to get it passed in 2010.

"We had a yearlong debate. I mean, go back and look at your stories," Obama told reporters at the G20 summit in Australia Sunday. "The one thing we can't say is that, 'we did not have a lengthy debate about health care in the United states of America' or that it was not adequately covered."

"The fact that some adviser who never worked on our staff expressed an opinion that I completely disagree with ... is no reflection on the actual process that was run," Obama said.

The comments the President referred to were made by Jim Gruber, an MIT health care economist, who noted in a 2010 speech that he "helped write the federal bill" and "was a paid consultant to the Obama administration to help develop the technical details as well."

In a series of speeches that have recently regained attention, Gruber says that engineers of the law, including the administration, took advantage of voters' "stupidity" in order to get the measure to pass.

"Lack of transparency is a huge advantage," Gruber said in a panel discussion at the University of Pennsylvania in 2013. "And basically, you know, call it the stupidity of the American voter or whatever. But basically that was really, really critical to getting the thing to pass."

"(I wish) we could make it all transparent. But I'd rather have this law than not," he said.

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Obama: We didn't deceive anyone to pass Obamacare

Rand Paul Confronts EEOC Nominee: How Do You Show Up to Work?
Speaking before the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions hearing on the nomination of P. David Lopez to serve as EEOC #39;s General Counsel, Rand Paul expressed skepticism...

By: Lord Rothschild

Link:
Rand Paul Confronts EEOC Nominee: How Do You Show Up to Work? - Video

Real Time with Bill Maher: Senator Rand Paul - November 14, 2014 (HBO)
Subscribe to the Real Time YouTube: http://itsh.bo/10r5A1B Bill Maher interviews Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) via satellite on November 14, 2014. Connect with Real Time Online: Find Real Time...

By: RealTime

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Real Time with Bill Maher: Senator Rand Paul - November 14, 2014 (HBO) - Video

By Ashley Killough, CNN

updated 11:32 PM EST, Fri November 14, 2014

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Kentucky, says the rhetoric in the climate change debate can be exaggerated.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

(CNN) -- Sen. Rand Paul, a Republican who hails from Kentucky coal country, tried to find some "middle ground" with HBO host Bill Maher on climate change, saying Friday night that he supports deregulating alternative sources of energy.

"We need more energy, and maybe cleaner energy will supplant less clean energy over time--and it already is--but I don't think that shutting down dramatically one form of energy is a good idea for an economy," the first-term senator said on "Real Time."

Bill Maher: I had drinks with Rand Paul

While saying he's not against some regulations, such as on carbon emissions and clean water, Paul said he plans on introducing legislation "in the next month or so" that would cut regulation of alternative fuels.

"I'm for trying to get the government out of the way of converting your trucks from diesel to natural gas, or from gasoline to ethanol," he said. "And try to let the marketplace take care of this, because some of these fuels are actually cheaper, too, and if they're cheaper then people will go for a cheaper alternative that also is cleaner for the environment."

His comments come as Paul, who's planning a presidential run but says he hasn't made a final decision yet, has blasted President Obama and other Democrats for supporting policies that would negatively affect the coal industry in his home state.

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Rand Paul talks climate change with Bill Maher - CNN.com