‘A colossal waste of time.’ 99 days and counting, McConnell still hasn’t met with Biden.

Mitch McConnell and Joe Biden aren’t talking much -- and neither seems to be losing much sleep over it.

The president and Washington’s most powerful Republican have chatted just twice briefly since the inauguration by phone, once in February on the military coup in Myanmar and once in March before Biden unveiled his infrastructure plan.

And McConnell has yet to be formally invited to the White House for a face-to-face sit-down, lunch or even a Diet Coke.

As the Biden presidency moves into its second quarter, the sparse communication between Biden and the Senate Republican Leader is casting doubts on a relationship that some presumed would be on better footing due to the longstanding fellowship between the pair of establishment-rooted politicians who have dwelled in Washington for decades.

But even the opening round of debate over infrastructure spending -- an issue that has historically been bipartisan -- is placing the two at nearly the opposite ends of the rainbow, with McConnell slamming Biden’s $2.2 trillion package this week as “a sloppy, liberal wish-list.”

Marc Hackett, a Minnesota-based director of a railroad maintenance company, wrote a check to McConnell earlier this year due to his influence over the infrastructure debate. Hackett describes himself as a “60% Republican” who will cross the aisle to support Democrats in his home state like Sen. Amy Klobuchar.

But after attending a Zoom fundraiser with McConnell in mid-February, he was struck by how far apart the leaders of the two parties sound, a feeling that’s only grown as he tracks the rhetoric in daily news reports.

“In the back of my mind, it was, ‘How are these people going to work together that’s going to benefit me or my family or my region?,’” Hackett said. “As it appears now, Biden isn’t really caring about bipartisanship. It’s, ‘This is my agenda, don’t get in the way.’”

He said McConnell presented himself as not particularly worried about the Democrats complete grip on Washington. “There’s a certain level of confidence he was projecting that he wasn’t going to be written off without consequence, that he still had power,” Hackett observed.

McConnell has thus far instilled discipline within the GOP Senate conference, which unanimously opposed the Covid-19 rescue package and is now largely coalescing against both the overall price tag Biden has placed on infrastructure spending and the tax hikes he’s proposing to pay for it.

But while at the start of the Biden presidency there was some belief that McConnell would be a central player in hammering out deals at the White House, there’s virtually no evidence to continue to think so.

Increasingly, some of the most active voices in both parties see little value for the two men to even have a conversation.

On the right, there’s a belief that either Biden isn’t really pulling the strings or that he’s ceded them to the far left.

“I’d love to negotiate with Biden, but Biden’s held captive by AOC,” said Grover Norquist, the president of the right-leaning Americans for Tax Reform, referring to New York Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. “Republicans are sickened hearing the press say he’s Mr. Bipartisan.”

Norquist added, “I’m not sure there’s a point talking to Biden. Talk to his chief of staff or something.”

David McIntosh, a former Indiana congressman who now heads the fiscally conservative group, Club for Growth, said his members would prefer McConnell take on Biden even more vigorously.

“They want to see a more aggressive rhetorical fight with Biden,” McIntosh said. “The way I view it is, [McConnell’s] getting the job done. He’s stopping the really bad ideas and that’s a good thing. Some of the members want to see more things on Fox News.”

On the left, there’s even less incentive to entertain McConnell, who many progressives view as a villain who strategically stalled and delayed former President Barack Obama’s agenda.

“It’s a colossal waste of time,” said Rahna Epting, the executive director of the liberal MoveOn.org, “And Joe Biden needs to be prioritizing delivering for the people. Speaking with McConnell is not going to get him there.”

Epting believes the impetus should be on McConnell to show Biden that talking is worth the president’s time.

“If and when McConnell wants to get serious about actually passing something instead of universal obstruction he knows where and how to find Joe Biden. I am not holding my breath,” she said.

It’s not as if Biden hasn’t met with any Republicans. In February, the president sat with ten GOP senators inside the White House for more than two hours to discuss a $618 billion coronavirus relief plan that Biden readily dismissed. A few weeks later, more GOP senators were summoned to talk about supply chain issues for semiconductor chips and personal protective equipment.

And just last week he met with Republican senators who served as governors -- including Mitt Romney of Utah and John Hoeven of North Dakota -- on his infrastructure plan.

Under McConnell’s guidance, Republicans are set to deploy their counterargument to Biden’s joint address to Congress on Wednesday night. Lead by Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, they’ll complain he’s saddled the country with massive spending and tax hikes -- all while breaking his promise to work with Republicans.

“Bait and switch strikes me as the best way to describe the Biden administration, at least so far,” McConnell said on Tuesday.

Neither Biden or his top aides are likely to be moved by the critique. An NBC poll released Sunday showed that Americans are closely divided in their ideological characterization of Biden: while 44% see him as liberal, 42% view him as a moderate. Most importantly, 53% said they approved of his job as president so far.

Why Biden’s team sees reasons for optimism in dealing with Mitch McConnell