JUDY WOODRUFF: For most of today, Capitol Hill has been in limbo.
The key question, do Democrats have enough votes to pass a
trillion-dollar infrastructure bill and move forward on a larger social spending plan?
Lisa Desjardins begins our coverage.
LISA DESJARDINS: For President Joe Biden, today was supposed to bring two hard-fought wins.
JOE BIDEN, President of the United States: The number one
priority should be seeing Congress pass these bills.
LISA DESJARDINS: House Democratic leaders said they would hold votes and pass
two Biden agenda bills that total nearly $3 trillion. To nudge wobbly Democrats,
Biden went to the hill last week, made phone calls overnight, and was blunt this morning.
JOE BIDEN: I'm asking every House member, member of the House of Representatives, to vote yes
on both these bills, right now. Send the infrastructure bill to my desk.
Send the Build Back Better bill to the Senate.
LISA DESJARDINS: But, instead, a group of moderates caused a hard stop,
refusing to vote on a usually simple motion to adjourn. At least four Democratic lawmakers,
including Representatives Stephanie Murphy, Kurt Schrader, Jared Golden, and Ed Case,
demanded another cost estimate of the larger Build Back Better bill before voting for anything.
Thrown into limbo were two mega-bills, one, the infrastructure deal, a bipartisan, roughly
$1 trillion package with money for roads and bridges, public transit and clean drinking water,
and the other, the Build Back Better Act. It's supported only by Democrats, with $1.75 trillion
for child care and housing, climate change, and strengthening the Affordable Care Act.
Moderates have waited months for a vote on that first item,
infrastructure, including Congressman Josh Gottheimer, who told "NewsHour" this in September.
REP. JOSH GOTTHEIMER (D-NJ): You can't hold one up, this infrastructure bill,
while you're working on the other one. That just doesn't make sense for the country.
LISA DESJARDINS: Today was only the latest quicksand moment for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi,
who last week had just gotten the other end of her caucus, progressives, on board.
REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA): This is professional.
Let's do it in a timely fashion. Let's not just keep having postponements.
LISA DESJARDINS: This was Progressive Caucus Chair Pramila Jayapal a few days ago:
REP. PRAMILA JAYAPAL (D-WA): With the text, with the votes,
we are ready to say, we trust you, Mr. President.
LISA DESJARDINS: But with new divides today, Pelosi signed on to a new plan,
separate the bills, vote on infrastructure tonight
and vote to advance, but not ultimately to pass Build Back Better yet.
REP. NANCY PELOSI: We're in the best place ever today to be able to go forward.
LISA DESJARDINS: That move toward moderates, again, was a problem for progressives,
like Jared Huffman, who says both bills go or neither.
REP. JARED HUFFMAN (D-CA): This has been a bit of a curveball, this latest development,
and it's unsettling and disruptive. And I hope we can get back on that original track.
LISA DESJARDINS: Timing is also a factor at the Capitol,
with the House and the Senate scheduled to be gone next week.
JUDY WOODRUFF: And Lisa joins me from the Capitol.
Lisa, it is dizzying. So, bring us up to the moment. Is either
one of these bills going to come up for a vote?
LISA DESJARDINS: I thought of that exact same
word. I'm worried everyone is just sort of lost in the lights here.
That's the right question, Judy, yes. The majority leader, Steny Hoyer, for the Democrats
in the House, I asked him that question: Is infrastructure coming up for a vote?
He told me a short time ago 100 percent. Listen to that, 100 percent, they will vote
on the infrastructure bill tonight. Let's take a look at the House floor right now.
Here's the thing. They're still stuck in the middle of a past vote. This is a procedural vote.
It's not substantive. But the fact that they have been stuck on this vote for such
a long time tells you that they are still working out the mechanics of what's ahead.
Judy, I think it will be a late night. But we do expect both of these votes,
sort of a procedural vote on the Build Back Better bill, but the major vote on
the infrastructure bill, we expect tonight. And here's the thing that people should know.
Pelosi is doing something I have never seen her do before. It seems she is rolling the
dice here. It is not clear to those of us outside her office that she has the votes to
pass that infrastructure bill tonight, because so many Democrats, including Pramila Jayapal,
other progressives, have said they don't want to vote for it if these bills are separated tonight.
So Pelosi will need Republican help tonight. Not clear she can get it. Even
if those Republicans and private support the infrastructure bill, it's bipartisan,
this is a political matter tonight, and it's not clear Pelosi is going to succeed or not.
JUDY WOODRUFF: So tell us a little bit more about who had problems today and why.
LISA DESJARDINS: Right.
So the moderates had a couple of concerns. One, we talked about before, was the cost
of the bill. They simply did not trust the initial cost estimate they were given. They
want the other from the Congressional Budget Office. But a big issue for moderates, Judy,
also are the provisions about immigration and the idea of a status for undocumented immigrants.
Some of those front-line Democrats, moderates, are worried that that would be an issue they
could lose on next year at the polls. On the other hand, progressives felt that moderates
kept moving the goalposts. And they feel like they have come to the table with earnest -- sort of
being very honest about where they stood. They want the Build Back Better bill.
And these two sides, again, as I told -- said last night,
they just can't say I do to each other at the same time.
JUDY WOODRUFF: And, Lisa, I know you have covered both the president,
President Biden, and Speaker Pelosi for many years.
What does what's going on today tell you about them and about the Democratic Caucus?
LISA DESJARDINS: Fascinating.
Speaker Pelosi has a well-earned reputation as being one of the best vote-counters and
schedulers, not just in this Congress, but in any recent Congress. And I think we saw,
with this situation, with this close margin -- she only has three votes that she can lose on
anything -- that she really overestimated, I think, her ability to push her caucus.
I think there's something else to realize about the Democrats in the House right now.
A third of them are relatively new. They have only been here since 2017,
vs. Pelosi, who's been here for decades. That's also a factor for President Biden. He operates
sort of on an older, I think Senate way of working things out behind closed doors calmly.
And some people I talk to here say, yes, he was involved,
but perhaps he should have been less congenial and really taken more of a stand
and really told, for example, moderates and progressives, you need to vote now,
vs. placing that on Speaker Pelosi to do, which is how he handled it.
JUDY WOODRUFF: So, Lisa, finally, let's just step back to understand.
Tell us again, where do these bills stand? What needs to happen
next for there to be final passage eventually?
LISA DESJARDINS: Right, .
Well, I think the first thing that needs to happen next for the country
is everyone to just have a weekend break perhaps from this story. But,
after tonight, we will see, first of all, if the infrastructure bill revives the vote.
Then, on Build Back Better, we know that that's not going to
pass tonight. They won't even vote on that in the House tonight. So,
we are going to have to wait now for Democrats to get that cost estimate from
the Congressional Budget Office. That will take who knows how long, days. Could even be weeks.
That is a potential time cost that could affect them. In the meanwhile,
there will still be more talks with the Senate. I want to tell folks about that large bill,
the truth is, there's a lot of support from everyone in the House in the
Democrats on Build Back Better. That will pass probably when it comes up.
The funny thing is, the House has been the easy part. So once we get past all of this, Judy,
you and I will probably be spending time talking about the Senate,
where things are still very tricky on that large bill.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Follow the bouncing ball.
I have a feeling you're going to be working late tonight, Lisa Desjardins.
LISA DESJARDINS: The weekend will come, though. We will get there.
JUDY WOODRUFF: The weekend, it will come.
Lisa, thank you very much.
LISA DESJARDINS: You're welcome.