I've been telling everyone that President Manchin holds 100% of the cards in the Build Back Better/Good Package negotiations because he's stacked the deck, and now we finally get to see the last and most powerful card in his hand if David Corn's story is to be believed, and Manchin actually calls it "Bullshit".
In recent days, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W. Va.) has told associates that he is considering leaving the Democratic Party if President Joe Biden and Democrats on Capitol Hill do not agree to his demand to cut the size of the social infrastructure bill from $3.5 trillion to $1.75 trillion, according to people who have heard Manchin discuss this. Manchin has said that if this were to happen, he would declare himself an “American Independent.” And he has devised a detailed exit strategy for his departure.
Manchin has been in the center of a wild rush of negotiations with his fellow Democrats and the White House over a possible compromise regarding Biden’s ambitious Build Back Better package, and Manchin’s opposition to key provisions—including Medicare and Medicaid expansion, an expanded child tax credit, and measures to address climate change—has been an obstacle that the Democrats have yet to overcome. As these talks have proceeded, Manchin has discussed bolting from the Democratic Party—perhaps to place pressure on Biden and Democrats in these negotiations.
He told associates that he has a two-step plan for exiting the party. First, he would send a letter to Sen. Chuck Schumer, the top Senate Democrat, removing himself from the Democratic leadership of the Senate. (He is vice chairman of the Senate Democrats’ policy and communications committee.) Manchin hopes that would send a signal. He would then wait and see if that move had any impact on the negotiations. After about a week, he said, he would change his voter registration from Democrat to independent.
It is unclear whether in this scenario Manchin would end up caucusing with the Democrats, which would allow them to continue to control the Senate, or side with the Republicans and place the Senate in GOP hands. In either event, he would hold great sway over this half of Congress.
Without Manchin’s vote, the Democrats cannot pass the package in the 50-50 Senate. And a vote on this measure is key to House passage of the $1 trillion bipartisan road-bridges-and-broadband infrastructure bill the Senate approved in August. (Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, an Arizona Democrat, has also been a problem for the party.) Manchin has met with Biden, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), the chair of the Senate Budget Committee, Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), the chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, and a variety of his fellow Senate Democrats this week in an effort to strike a deal. Through it all, he has insisted that $1.75 trillion is his top and final offer, and he has constantly said no to proposed programs that almost every other congressional Democrat supports. He has told his fellow Democrats that if they don’t accept his position, they risk getting nothing.
Manchin told associates that he was prepared to initiate his exit plan earlier this week and had mentioned the possibility to Biden. But he was encouraged by the conversations with Sanders and top Democrats that occurred at the start of the week and did not yet see a reason to take this step. Still, he has informed associates that because he is so out of sync with the Democratic Party he believes it is likely he will leave the party by November 2022.
Manchin has repeatedly said that he has a significant philosophical difference with most of his fellow Democrats. He has told reporters that he believes major programs in the Build Back Better bill would move the United States toward an “entitlement mentality” and that he cannot accept that. In a recent meeting with Biden, Manchin told the president that he sees government as a partner with the public not the ultimate provider, according to people who heard the senator’s account of the conversation. He explained to the president that in his view Biden didn’t win the presidency last year by championing progressive proposals, and he pressed the president to recall his campaign promise to bring people together. He also reminded Biden that he has vowed not to support any package unless it contains the Hyde Amendment, which bans the use of federal funds to pay for abortions, except in cases of incest or when the life of the mother is at risk.
Now that if up there is a big one. David Corn isn't exactly the best person in the beltway Village. He's had #MeToo issues and credibility problems on the Steele Dossier in the past, and been publicly called out on both.
If Corn is right here, it means Democrats need to take President Manchin's deal, accept what he allows you to have, or get nothing and lose the Senate. Note that he's saying it's "likely" that he will leave the party by November 2022. Whether that means siding with the GOP and Biden losing everything, well, now that's up to Biden, isn't it, said the hostage taker.
Of course, Manchin doesn't want to be seen as the hostage taker so as I said up top he's denying all of this.
MANCHIN to @burgessev and me on the report he is threatening to leave the Democratic Party if his demands are not met on infrastructure: “I can’t control rumors and it’s bullshit, bullshit spelled with a B, U, L, L, capital ‘B’”: pic.twitter.com/ex8iHMIiSs
— Frank Thorp V (@frankthorp) October 20, 2021
So we're right back to "Will he, won't he" because frankly, feeding David Corn this rumor would be a GOP operative's dream story sowing Democratic disarray. What would Manchin gain from going down as the most hated Democratic senator since Joe Lieberman and John Edwards?
The answer is a shitload of money, frankly.
Besides, it's not like Manchin cares too much about making deals or getting things passed as voting rights went down in flames again in the Senate on Wednesday.
Democrats argued that the bill is a necessity after Republican state legislatures passed laws limiting access to the ballot box following former President Donald Trump's false claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him.
"Across the country, the Big Lie -- the Big Lie -- has spread like a cancer as many states across the nation have passed the most draconian restrictions against voting that we've seen in decades," Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said. "If nothing is done, these laws will make it harder for millions of Americans to participate in their government."
President Joe Biden issued a harsh statement during the vote, calling it "unconscionable" that Republicans would block the legislation from advancing.
"The United States Senate needs to act to protect the sacred constitutional right to vote, which is under unrelenting assault by proponents of the Big Lie and Republican Governors, Secretaries of State, Attorneys-General, and state legislatures across the nation," Biden said.
Amid the Republican blockade, Democrats on the left have increasingly called on their party's senators to gut the Senate's filibuster rule requiring 60 votes to advance most legislation.
Pennsylvania Lt. Governor John Fetterman, a Senate Democratic candidate, said in a statement, "every Democratic Senator who votes in favor of this bill today, but won't support getting rid of the filibuster, is engaging in performative politics, and is content with the GOP's complete assault on our democracy."
But at least two Democratic senators — Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona — have said they are unwilling to change the filibuster rule and are crucial votes for the Biden administration's economic agenda.
On the other hand, Corn does have a lot of clicks and views and follow-ups to gain if he's the bad faith actor here and he's being rolled by his sources.
On the gripping hand, well, Manchin himself has been conducting this entire trashing of the Biden plan in bad faith.
The real question is which of these known bad faith actors then is acting in bad faith. I don't know the answer to that, but I do know the answer to the general Manchin/Sinema problem.
Remember, the answer here is more and better Dems, not staying home in 2022. That would render Manchin's antics irrelevant. Sinema too. 53, 54 Democrats in the Senate, and somehow keeping the House, and we're in far better shape.
But if history's any indication, we'll only get five or six more Republicans in the Senate and fifty or sixty more in the House instead.
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