A day after Democrats were blindsided by Sen. Joe Manchin’s sudden declaration of being a “no” vote on the Build Back Better Act, the Senate Majority Leader declared he would insist on a floor vote anyway. Sen. Chuck Schumer said he want to get every senator’s vote on the record. Schumer spoke to the Washington Post:
“Senators should be aware that the Senate will, in fact, consider the Build Back Better Act, very early in the new year so that every Member of this body has the opportunity to make their position known on the Senate floor, not just on television,” Schumer said. “We are going to vote on a revised version of the House-passed Build Back Better Act — and we will keep voting on it until we get something done.”
Manchin’s announcement on Sunday that he would not support BBB prompted a “wave of criticism,” according to the Post.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki unleashed a blistering 712-word written statement accusing Manchin of making a “sudden and inexplicable reversal in his position” and calling his comments a “breach of his commitments” to Biden and Democratic lawmakers, if he has decided to end negotiations.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez says Manchin’s announcement was a “betrayal of working families across the country” and “an egregious breach of trust of the president.” Watch her interview on this morning on MSNBC:
Meanwhile on Monday, Manchin blamed the breakdown on the White House staff. From Axios:
Driving the news:“This is not the president, this is staff,” Manchin told West Virginia radio host Hoppy Kercheval in a 14-minute MetroNews radio interview Monday morning.
- “I just got to the wit’s end,” he said, adding that White House staff “drove some things and they put some things out that were absolutely inexcusable. They know what it is.”
- “The bottom line [is] I knew that we could not change, it was never going to change.”