Sen. Joe Manchin clapped back at reporters following President Joe Biden’s State of the Union Address Tuesday evening after he was asked again about the fate of the White House’s “Build Back Better” legislative agenda.
Manchin, a moderate Democrat from West Virginia, made it known that there was no way that agenda was going to be salvaged, The Hill .
“They just can’t help themselves,” he said. “I don’t know where that came from.”
“Nothing’s changed,” he said. “There might be parts they want to talk about. I don’t know. That was a little bit far.”
Manchin also said that he doubted Biden’s claims that more government spending will ease inflation.
“I’ve never found out that you can lower costs by spending more,” he said.
That prompted Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) to respond: “You can’t say it better than that.”
Politico added:
Manchin’s comments immediately raised serious doubts about whether Biden will be able to resuscitate his spending package, which stalled in December after months of negotiations.
Biden tried to appeal to Manchin, the only remaining holdout vote in the Democratic caucus, by arguing that his agenda will help offset the impact of rising prices by lowering the costs of middle-class families.
In early February, CNN correspondent Manu Raju posted on Twitter that Manchin declared the bill is “dead” as-is.
“What Build Back Better bill? I don’t know what you guys are talking about,” Raju reported that Manchin said when asked if he had had any talks on the matter since December
“No, no, no, no. It’s dead,” Manchin responded.
Conservative Brief :
Last week, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer decided to go ahead with a vote to end the filibuster to pass the Democrats’ voting legislation and it failed.
Manchin and Arizona Democrat Sen. Kyrsten Sinema voted against nuking the filibuster.
If the vote was supposed to humiliate Manchin and Sinema, or if it was designed to pressure them, it was not successful.
Manchin stood before the Senate and gave a fantastic speech explaining that ending the filibuster would tear the nation apart.
“I cannot support such a perilous course for this nation when elected leaders are sent to Washington to unite our country, not to divide our country,” the senator said.
“Let this change happen in this way, and the Senate will be a body without rules,” he said.