Page 14 - House Progressives News Today

I talked to alexandria ocasio-cortez, one of the leading house progressives, and she told me that a framework does not mean a deal. just because theres a framework, it could be months until theres actual legislative text. and what does that look like? this is a short framework, a handful of pages here. but the details of the bill would be hundreds, if not thousands of pages, and that could take weeks and weeks and weeks, months potentially to put together. that is the real concern of the white h...

What were trying to highlight to our colleagues is this is the first step, the next step. we will have other bills as well that will come up. we be build upon this framework, but right now we need to do this bill. >> congressman, candidly, that is where you all have been for a really long time, saying this is a first step, there is a next step, and more work to be done. are you calling the progressives bluff? >> the difference is that the president came to the house democratic caucus and asked f...

Hes going overseas and vote down this infrastructure bill. and she went further. she said she would put this bill on the floor and leave the vote open, try to force members to get behind this ultimately. now, she got some pushback by the congressman from illinois who said about manchin and sinema? she responded, look, take the president at his word. he said hes going to get this bill through. listen to him, and ultimately this will get passed because of the work hes done with those two moderates...

Pass the house at the same time as that infrastructure bill passes the house. they believe that withholding their support is leverage, supports moderates behind the larger bill. the democratic leaders are trying to convince the progressives to change their mind, and that is the challenge for joe biden, urging his caucus to get behind this saying they need to pass this today. the question is how any of these progressives will react to this. going into the meeting, they made clear they were not go...

Be. is there enough trust between house progressives and the senate moderates to actually move ahead and start voting on the infrastructure legislation and then of course build back better. right now it sounds like were still in the same place, which is that progressives perhaps have enough votes to say no, we want to see that legislative text. >> remarkable, too, looking at this. i have to wonder, there was a lot of pressure weeks ago for the president to be more involved. we saw the involvemen...

Let me go over to david chalian on this. david, what do you think of what we just heard from pete aguilar? >> i mean, basically you just heard the congressman put this in the hands of the house progressives. are you going to give your president a black eye publicly over his major agenda items in which he says his presidency rests? thats the question that house progressives need to answer. >> exactly right. thank you, david. here we go. president biden and vice president kamala harris. >> today i...

This bill together. he has not come through with those, so well see how they react when they study for of this. a major moment for the president trying to get his agenda through. his caucus is not yet in line. do they change their minds is the big question as we talk to members coming up. >> we look forward to that. youll do your best to get that comment. john, as manu pointed out, weve heard consistently progressives need a firm commitment from man chinn and sinema. we heard from senator dick d...

Keep our eye on the white house. manu raju is standing by with the latest. youve got some great reporting on what came out, what was said inside that meeting with joe biden. tell me what youre learning. >> reporter: right now there is a high stakes game of chicken between the speaker, nancy pelosi, and progressives in her own caucus over the presidents infrastructure plan. pelosi, i am told, made very clear she plans to put that infrastructure plan on the house floor today. that of course alread...

The second piece is they are affirming they want to see the two bills go together. we also know in the last few moments that congressman jayapal walked into a meeting with a group of senators that includes senator kyrsten sinema and that is key because right now think of it this way with house progressives on one side, kyrsten sinema and joe manchin on the other. and they need to build some trust because the house progressives are saying, look. we dont want to move forward if we dont have more a...

Countries to follow in the united states lead. that argument is harder to make if there is no agreement on this framework by then. so the white house had been banking on that, which is why youre seeing the president leave several hours later than he was expected to as they were trying to hammer out this last-minute negotiation on this deal and try to get that agreement manu was talking about that of course requires those progressives to get on board and trust that senator manchin and senator sin...