To the next big story of the day, there was a major step on the road to passage of a
massive infrastructure law, the more than one trillion dollar bill cleared the Senate
today. It funds fixes to roads, bridges, railways, water systems
and broadband networks, as well as address some climate related needs.
It now heads to the US House.
This bill is a key priority for President Biden, and he lauded the milestone this
afternoon.
Today, I'm happy to mark the significant milestone on the road
toward making what we all know are long overdue, much
needed investments in basic, hard infrastructure of this nation.
I truly believe that this bill proves voice of the people will be heard
and then we can all come together to make a difference in people's lives.
Ohio Senator Rob Portman, who was a lead GOP negotiator crafting the bill,
was one of 19 Republicans who joined all 50 Democrats today in supporting
it. He spoke on the Senate floor before the vote.
Is it exactly the bill I would have drafted? No, it's not exactly the bill any senator
in this chamber would have drafted because it represents a true bipartisan effort.
Each side made concessions to find that common ground.
Among the Republicans who ended up opposing the bill was Indiana's Todd Young, though
he'd previously voted to let the bill advance through the Senate process.
In a recent statement, he said, We can't afford to continue to grow the national debt
at this pace, particularly as our economy recovers from the pandemic.
We now get the latest from our Lisa Desjardins and Umesh Alcindor.
Welcome to you both. Very big day, Lisa, to start with you.
This was a very long, tough process to get to this day.
It still has a long way to go. But how did the Senate get this job done?
This was an unusual process.
And I wonder if this is going to be a template that we'll see them try again.
This was not committee chairs coming up with this bill.
This was a group of 10 senators trying to operate in good faith.
All of them thought they could do this.
They formed a gang. Now, what's interesting is we've heard these gangs form before in the
Senate, like on immigration, other issues.
They've always failed until now. But these were senators who put in the hard work and
they were able to when something was nearing collapse, one senator would stand up
and make a concession that got them through.
The other key part of know you're going to talk about is the White House really put in
the work on this to get it through a very tough and very narrow channel.
I have to say, I've been at the Hill a while and I haven't felt the kind of exuberance
that I felt today from my sources in maybe a decade.
They really felt like we did something difficult.
We did it together.
This was obviously one of Joe Biden's this is how he sold himself
during the campaign that I could be someone that can bring the parties together.
And as Lisa is pointing out, we are getting a glimpse of how the president has been
operating and a sense of what his agenda, what really matters to him.
What have you been witnessing from your reporting at the White House?
Well, President Biden today especially was taking a victory lap.
But as you noted, it's really about the Biden legacy.
He wants his legacy to be about passing big bills and about bipartisanship, getting
this done. So over and over again today, as he was taking this sort of victory lap, he
was saying there were people, even when I was running, who said you could never work with
Republicans. You're never going to be able to get to the Hill and have White House aides
bringing these two parties together. There's too much going on, too much animosity.
And he said, look, this is shows that American democracy works and that sense of joy that
Lisa's talking about. It was definitely over on sixteen hundred Pennsylvania Avenue.
You could feel the president almost levitating. There's a lot of, of course, things going
on, a pandemic, so many things, so many challenges for this White House.
But the president said this bill is fundamentally going to change.
American life, he says is transformational.
And he also hit this theme that we've seen throughout his presidency, which is America is
better for this on the world stage. I also want to point out those people that were going
to the Hill, those White House aides, they're really, really critical in this because
President Biden leaned into the idea that the White House should be involved in the
details. And I want to talk specifically about three people that are important there,
Steve Ricchetti. He's the White House counselor to the president, Brian Disha, director
of National Economic Council, the National Economic Council, and Louisa Terho.
She's the White House legislative affairs director.
Usually you see someone with Louise's title at the Capitol, but Steve Ricchetti, who is
a trusted source for the president, something that is done a long time.
At one point he was holed up for nine hours with Republican Senator Rob Portman trying
to iron out those details. So that tells you just how hands on the White House was.
So while the president is still levitating, as he puts it, Lisa, what
happens next? Because this is not a done deal, the football is still not over
the final line.
I think
it's complicated. It's a little bit complicated.
This was part one of two bills that are connected to each other politically.
So as this bill moves out of the Senate to the House, the Senate instantly moves to that
next bill, the budget reconciliation bill.
We've been talking about that three or four trillion dollars.
That is the even larger bill that Democrats want to get through.
That is right. Now, step one of that is moving through the Senate tonight.
Likely they will finish with that sometime in the wee hours overnight.
But I want to explain to you, the house is going to be a tricky situation.
So let me try and run through this as simply as I can.
It's complicated. The infrastructure bill that just passed the Senate that is favored
by moderate Democrats, especially.
They like that. They see it as a middle ground, the reconciliation bill, that larger bill
that's favored more by progressive Democrats.
That's something that's going to change health care, child care, community college, all
of that. But getting up through a 50 50 Senate is going to be tricky.
So those progressives are nervous. They're not sure if this reconciliation bill can make
it through the Senate. So here's Speaker Pelosi.
She's holding on to the infrastructure bill that moderates like until the reconciliation
bill that progressives want clears the Senate.
I mean, it's sort of a Democratic kind of tit for tat
situation here. There is a lot of pressure on her from all sides.
There are a lot of sources now wondering if she doesn't cave in at some point on that,
but. Right now, she's holding holding firm to her word,
you mean what is your sense, given that you describe the full court press at the White
House is done, do you think that they're going to keep this up to try to pass this last
bit, as Lisa has been describing?
Absolutely. The White House is going to be very, very involved in making sure that this
goes through the house and that both of these bills land on the president's desk here
that that dance that they're going to be doing over at the House.
President Biden says he has full confidence in Speaker Pelosi's approach.
So that tells you without saying particularly that the White House says, yes, both of
these bills need to be working in tandem.
You, Michelle Sándor, Lisa Desjardins, thank you both so much.
Thanks so much.