Incoming Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said that Democrats in the upper chamber "are the barrier" for ensuring that President-elect Donald Trump governs broadly and fairly.
"If he is going to agree on issues like trade and transportation infrastructure in a very real way with us, we have an obligation to pursue it," Schumer, who was elected the Democrats' leader this week, told The New York Times.
"But at the same time, we have an obligation to oppose him on all the places where he tramples on our values, travels with racism or just dismantles things because the right wing tells him to do so.
"That is where we are at," he said.
Schumer, 65, who has been serving New York in the Senate since 1999, is also willing to cut deals with Trump and Majority Leader Mitch McConnell when necessary.
"It would be a dereliction of our responsibility if we didn’t try," he said. "As long as we don’t sell out, we have an obligation to the millions of Americans who are struggling."
One possible issue on cooperation is trade reform, which Trump pitched strongly to blue-collar voters, Schumer told the Times.
"We are saying: 'Mr. President you have two choices: Work with us and you will have to alienate your Republican colleagues, or break your promises to blue-collar America,'" he said.
"I believe that blue-collar America voted for Trump mainly because of Democratic issues like trade, not for Republican issues like tax cuts for the wealthy."