You're going to hold that hostage, and we're going to be voting on $3.5. And then somewhere down the line in a room, which I was not part of, somebody came up, you're going to couple them together. Before this reconciliation came up, the president was spending all this time with senators to come up with this bipartisan bill. I mean, look, we know the legislative process. “Like I said, I was not in the room when somebody came up with a decision to couple this together. What do you promise to do, though, to help get that second social spending bill done through reconciliation? But this is my understanding, my of our conversation.”īack in August, you coauthored an op-ed where you said that the progressive caucus is essentially holding the infrastructure bill hostage. I'm just saying, the way the senator, I think, is looking at it.

And then let's see what we end up with that number. He says, OK, what are the needs that we have? Here's the need. Let's fill it up with items, and then let's look how we pay for it. 'So what people are doing, some people are looking at here's $3.5 trillion. And I don't think Senator Joe Manchin was in that room. Hey, we got to couple the transportation and the reconciliation. Some people - and I was not in the room when they said, Hey, it's going to be $3.5 trillion. And not the number, but let me just tell you the way I think the thought process. I can tell you this is the way he looks at it. And again, it's not my job to talk about that. I do have a number that I think Senator Joe Manchin is willing to go to, but that is his job to talk about that.” I just talked to them just a couple of days ago. “Well, I don't speak for Senator Manchin, I certainly don't speak for Senator Kyrsten Sinema. So is there adequate give and take actually happening right now? Where is the give and take happening right now between Democrats? Representative Pressley expressed frustration that on the Senate side, at least, they're not even getting a number from Joe Manchin. So the bottom line is we have a lot of things in common.” And the Republicans then had their Tea Party people and they had their own differences. Back after 2010, after we lost when we went big in 2010, we lost the majority by going big. 'Sometimes there's a give and take between Democrats and Republicans, and sometimes there's give and take within a particular political party. But we got to understand, we are in a legislative process, a legislative process just basically for the history of our country means that there's give and take. I think this is what the reconciliation is all about, remaking the safety net. We certainly want to make sure that we remake the safety net. We certainly want to improve health care. Rep. Henry Cuellar: “We have a lot of points in agreement with each other. On what Democrats risk losing from party infighting

Interview Highlights with Rep. Henry Cuellar Representative for Virginia's 5th district. Representative for North Dakota's at-large congressional district. Author of ' Pelosi.' ( Also FeaturedĮarl Pomeroy, former U.S. ( Ball, national political correspondent for TIME. ( Ayanna Pressley, Democratic representative for Massachusetts' 7th Congressional District. ( DesJardins, congressional correspondent for PBS NewsHour. He is a member of the House Appropriations Committee. Henry Cuellar, Democratic representative for Texas’ 28th Congressional District, an area South of San Antonio that ends at the U.S.-Mexico border. Today, On Point: Will Democrats let party infighting destroy their own, and President Biden's, ambitious goals? Guests “A vote against this plan is a vote against lowering the cost of health care, housing, childcare, eldercare and prescription drugs for American families.'īut party bickering could tank what Democrats believe is a once-in-a-generation opportunity. Alex Wong/Getty Images)ĭemocrats in Washington are divided … again. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) leaves after a news conference outside the U.S.

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