Infrastructure deal in peril after Pelosi gets played by progressives refusing to budge on mega-spending bill
Pelosi had vowed to get the bill passed this week but progressives stopped her
Fox News congressional correspondent Chad Pergram breaks down where the bills stand ahead of vote.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi talked a big game that President Biden’s $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill would pass this week. Progressive members of the House, however, flexed their legislative muscle Thursday evening, spurring Pelosi to call off the effort to pass the bill after negotiations on the reconciliation bill stalled.
Pelosi said the bill would pass, vowing Sunday to never bring "a bill to the floor that doesn't have the votes." But her attempt to get the bill to the floor for a vote was thwarted after progressives warned her that "a majority of our members will only vote for the infrastructure bill after the President’s visionary Build Back Better Act passes."
Progressives followed through on their longstanding threats that they will hold up the $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill without a simultaneous vote on the sweeping $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill.
The feud now threatens two of Biden’s top legislative priorities as the divide within the Democratic Party deepens and the progressives’ power increases.
"The progressive movement has not had this type of power in Washington since the 1960s," Joseph Geevarghese, Executive Director of Our Revolution, told Time as Biden’s agenda hangs in the balance.
Progressives are adamant they will "hold the line" until they get they pass the reconciliation bill, which includes tuition-free community college, expanded Medicare, a universal preschool program, and other social programs.
"Voters have lost faith their elected representatives will fight for them. They're sick of watching their interests get rolled by corporations. They're tired of nothing changing in their daily lives. They deserve something better — and we're in this fight to deliver it," the Progressive Caucus tweeted late Thursday.
PELOSI DELAYS VOTE ON INFRASTRUCTURE BILL AS DEMS FAIL TO REACH DEAL: LIVE UPDATES
Sen. Bernie Sanders also slammed Pelosi’s "absurd" late-night negotiations, adding that the infrastructure bill "must be defeated."
"It is an absurd way to do business, to be negotiating a multi-trillion-dollar bill a few minutes before a major vote with virtually nobody knowing what's going on," Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders told reporters Thursday. "That's unacceptable. And I think what has got to happen is that tonight, the bipartisan infrastructure bill must be defeated. And we can sit down and work out a way to pass both pieces of legislation."
PELOSI, TOP DEM DEPUTY SEND MIXED MESSAGES ON INFRASTRUCTURE BILL HOURS AHEAD OF POSSIBLE VOTE
Meanwhile, moderate Democrats in the House are perplexed. They believe progressives’ demand that the Senate vote first on the social spending plan is absurd, Fox News’s Chad Pergram reported Friday. They don’t want to walk away from the deal but would prefer doing nothing if the price isn't right.
The negotiations on the bill were further complicated by Sen. Joe Manchin, a moderate within the Democratic Party, who on Thursday revealed his top-end price tag for the bill sits at $1.5 trillion, not $3.5 trillion. Fellow moderate, Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, joined Manchin and said she’s been clear she will not support a $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill.
"Sen. Sinema said publicly more than two months ago, before Senate passage of the bipartisan infrastructure bill, that she would not support a bill costing $3.5 trillion," she said in a statement posted on Twitter. "In August, she shared detailed concerns and priorities, including dollar figures, directly with Senate Majority Leader Schumer and the White House."
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Pelosi, however, struck an optimistic tone as she left the Capitol just after midnight Friday morning.
"We're not trillions apart," she said at 12:01 a.m. "There'll be a vote today."