WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama said he had “a great conversation” with Senate Republicans on Thursday, the third stop in his ice-breaking tour of the Capitol this week on the budget and other contentious topics.

The 90-minute meeting with GOP rivals, senators said, featured exchanges on the budget, the proposed Keystone XL oil pipeline, tax reform and the regulatory burden on businesses.

“He was very candid. He certainly understands that you can’t fix the country without adjusting entitlements to fit the demographics of our country,” said Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., referring to benefit programs like Social Security and Medicare. “We’ll see where we go from here, but it was a great meeting.”

Obama then walked across the Capitol to meet with his House Democratic allies, capping visits this week to the Democratic and GOP conferences of both House and Senate.

Thursday’s meetings came as a key Senate panel moved toward party-line approval of a fiscal blueprint that would only modestly trim the budget deficit while protecting safety net programs from slashing cuts proposed by Republicans.