Joe Biden’s “Build Back Better” plan is in big trouble, as we have been reporting.
The progressives and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi are desperate to pass it, even at the risk of the bipartisan infrastructure bill. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) has even said that they should not pass the infrastructure bill first, as Pelosi would like on Thursday because they will lose their leverage on getting the Build Back Better budget reconciliation plan through.
Meanwhile, the moderate Democrats think the infrastructure bill is what’s critical. They’re not as sold on the Build Back Better bill. Indeed, Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) already said if the infrastructure bill wasn’t passed by yesterday she was going to be a “no” on the Build Back Better bill. And she had ten other folks allegedly thinking similarly behind her.
So Pelosi and the progressives can play these games, but if Sinema is true to her word, then this is already dead. Of course, who knows who sticks to what declaration when the spit hits the spam and the final push goes down on all this? But both she and Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) have been clear about their objections.
Meanwhile, when Pelosi spoke to Congress today, she made a pretty big slip when she spoke about the Build Back Better bill. She said that there was a requirement to pass the bill and “keep government open.” “We have to do those imminently,” Pelosi stuttered. “More imminently to fully address the full Obama agenda of building back better.”
NEW – Pelosi: "Keep government open… to address the full #Obama agenda of building back better."pic.twitter.com/uU0LvIw11y
— Disclose.tv (@disclosetv) September 28, 2021
Now, was that too much adult libation for lunch that made her misspeak? Or was she really saying something there? It had a lot of people talking because there’s often speculation on who the people are behind Biden. It even trended on Twitter.
Barack Obama had previously joked himself that if he could get someone to front for him, he would.
“I used to say if I can make an arrangement where I had a stand-in or front-man or front-woman and they had an earpiece in and I was just in my basement in my sweats looking through the stuff and I could sort of deliver the lines while someone was doing all the talking and ceremony, I’d be fine with that because I found the work fascinating,” Obama quipped.
In my opinion, Obama really would have picked anyone other than Biden because he knows his issues. I think Obama realized how tenuous Biden was. But I have no doubt since some of the same folks, like Susan Rice — who was the eyes and ears for Obama — are now working for Biden, that Obama has his influence. There is no doubt that he is pushing for the Build Back Better agenda passed through Congress, as he himself said on Good Morning America yesterday. He’s actually going out to stump for it to get through because he’s not really sure that Biden can get it through without him. The concepts, of course, are not just Biden’s, but longstanding Democratic agenda items. “Build Back Better” isn’t even Biden’s term, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson and others used it before Biden did.
Former Pres. @BarackObama tells @robinroberts he believes Pres. Biden’s Build Back Better infrastructure agenda and the $3.5 trillion infrastructure bill is something “America desperately needs.” Watch TOMORROW on @GMA. https://t.co/cUzjIZJzYM pic.twitter.com/sw8kdb2JkD
— ABC News (@ABC) September 27, 2021
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