“Inexcusable”: Did Biden’s infrastructure meeting with House Dems backfire? HotAir

Remember that Pelosi will need all of the moderates in her caucus plus a few centrist Republicans to eventually pass the bipartisan infrastructure bill. That s because some not all, but some progressives are demanding that the Senate pass a reconciliation bill before the House votes on anything. But there s no chance of that happening. The most that Senate Dems like Manchin and Sinema will do in the near term to reassure House lefties that reconciliation will ultimately get done is agree to an informal public framework.

That may not be good enough for Pramila Jayapal, the Squad, and a few other hardliners. If they refuse to vote yes on the bipartisan bill until the Senate passes reconciliation, Pelosi has no chance of getting the bill through unless she gets help from the GOP. And until yesterday, it looked like she might. Somewhere between 10 and 20 Republican centrists were expected to vote yes.

Then Joe Biden showed up.

Biden shocked Dems yesterday when he attended their caucus meeting for what everyone expected would be a pep talk about passing the bipartisan bill immediately and trusting him and Senate Dems to deliver on reconciliation eventually. The president wants to put some legislative points on the board, right? His job approval is tanking and this would be a major win for him. Instead, Biden endorsed the progressive position that the bipartisan bill and reconciliation should remain linked, which means the first doesn t get passed until there s a deal on the second. The fact that the president came to the Hill and whipped against his own bill is the strangest thing I ve ever seen, said one source to Politico, marveling at Biden s strategy.

Centrist Republicans were irate afterward. They may be able to dodge conservative wrath by voting for the bipartisan bill so long as it s viewed by voters in isolation, as an expenditure to improve roads and bridges. But the more Biden links it to the reconciliation social-welfare mega-bill, the more politically toxic it becomes for GOPers. And again, Pelosi probably needs their votes. Unless she can get the hardline lefties to bend, the bipartisan bill is DOA without Republican help.

Which means Biden s pitch yesterday to keep the two bills linked may end up killing both.

via hotair.com