Fresh off of several days of elbow-rubbing and “shamefully” fist-bumping with Middle Eastern leaders, including one who had to help him to his seat, President Joe Biden capped of a week’s worth of predictable failures on the foreign policy front by giving what amounted to his best “tough guy” answer during a hastily arranged press conference in Saudi Arabia that reportedly took place around 10:30 p.m. local time.

As the presser was said to be ending, Biden was asked by a reporter if he believed Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) had been acting in “good faith” during prior negotiations on what used to be known as the “Build Back Better” bill considering Manchin told Senate Democratic leaders Thursday that he was a firm “no” on new funding for climate spending and in part taxing the rich to get there, effectively shutting down a major part of Joe Biden’s election-year agenda after months of tense negotiations and the day after staggering new inflation numbers were released.

Biden’s response to the reporter’s question was that he “didn’t negotiate with Manchin” so he had “no idea” if he acted in good faith:

“I didn’t negotiate with Manchin, I have no idea,” Biden tells reporters in Saudi Arabia when asked if Manchin negotiated in good faith on climate bill. Well-known that WH was letting Schumer handle negotiations but still a bit startling to hear this directly from Biden.

— Ella Nilsen (@ella_nilsen) July 15, 2022

Watch:

Reporter: "Is Joe Manchin negotiating in good faith?"

President Biden: "I didn't negotiate with Joe Manchin. I have no idea." pic.twitter.com/6XMOGLumki

— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) July 15, 2022

Prior to Friday’s jab at Manchin, Biden had always kept it civil and polite when asked about how things were going with Manchin on whatever was being negotiated even when Biden’s handlers went rogue and went in the opposite direction, probably because he knew that Manchin would (and did) pull the rug out from underneath the whole thing if he felt Biden’s team were slighting him.

Obviously Biden’s not interested in playing nice anymore, and you can best believe Manchin noticed and will respond accordingly by making his time in office even more challenging.

This apparently is supposed to be Joe Biden’s best “public counterpunch” to the betrayal he and members of his party feel after thinking they were getting somewhere with a red state Democrat Senator who has nothing to gain by signing on to any bloated spending package put forth by a Biden White House desperate to be able to claim “victory” on a core Biden agenda item four months out from the midterm elections and at a time when polling confirms that Biden is viewed by a majority of Americans as a feckless leader on multiple fronts, in particular on inflation and the economy.

As I’ve said before, Joe Manchin knows that he’s the most powerful Joe in Washington, D.C., not the POTUS. The keys to Biden’s perceived “success” in the first two years of his term are almost quite literally in Manchin’s hands, and that’s something of which he’s also keenly aware.

Again and as my other colleagues have also noted, there is no incentive whatsoever for Manchin to appease Joe Biden and the climate alarmists in his party at this time, something Biden’s handlers are now acknowledging considering this statement issued about half an hour before the Saudi press conference started noting that Biden was now preparing to take executive action:

BIDEN responds to Manchin, saying that if the Senate won't pass a climate bill, "I will take strong executive action to meet this moment."

Meantime, he tells Congress to pass a drug pricing and ACA funding bill "before the August recess, and get it to my desk so I can sign it." pic.twitter.com/C3qzGMLqpD

— Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) July 15, 2022

Those are the words of a man defeated. The shorter version of that statement is “Hey, I can’t unite my own party to get my legislative agenda enacted, so I’m gonna executive order the hell out of everything in hopes that by election time voters will believe I’ve accomplished something.”

Just pathetic all the way around.

Biden rode into the White House in January 2021 promising a new tone and unity and healing and to get things done. He’s failed on all fronts and actually has set the country back since he took office, and no amount of executive orders or expressing doubt publicly (and on foreign soil at that) about the “good faith” of one of your fellow party members for not playing footsie is going to change that inconvenient fact.

Flashback: Joe Manchin Causes Hurt Feelings by Stating an Inarguable Truth About America