general in this letter we ve seen expresses some frustration in how difficult it has been to get records from the secret service, especially around that time, january 6, important time, and then the house select committee and other congressional committees are concerned as well partly because the house, too, they re trying to nail down on their own the details of january 6. that includes what secret service agents witnessed of donald trump that day, what they said about it afterward and that s a big part of what they re continuing to probe, especially now after the testimony of white house aide cassidy hutchinson which did highlight the secret service and what happened there. caitlin, cnn also has new reporting about a d.c. metropolitan police officer who is corroborating details of what cassidy hutchinson said. tell us about this. right. it wasn t just the secret service who witnessed that motorcade on january 6th that donald trump was in. when cassidy hutchinson testifi
closing in on a deal with senator manchin and also it s stunning to look at what democrats were debating and discussing over last year compared to what they are talking about now. and just how much this package has changed. because what senator manchin is saying now, what he will support is prescription drug pricing and negotiating that and health care subsidies. remember a year ago we were talk being a $3.5 trillion proposal that included everything from universal pre-k to climate initiatives. so much in there. dental, vision, all of these things, this really all encompassing safety net package and now it has been changed with these demands of senator joe manchin because of that 50/50 senate he has such power to do this. this has dashed democratic hopes of getting some bigger package passed before the midterm elections when of course right now the conventional wisdom is that democrats are going to lose. they ve got control of the house, of the senate, of the white house.
break up the package into smaller pieces. for example, doing a standalone bill on a child tax care credit with the idea being that perhaps these smaller-scale bills could win over joe manchin who was really uncomfortable with the idea of a large scale social sieft safety net package. this would represent a major shift in strategy for democrats but it is something they are warming up to. take a listen to what senator ben cardin had to say when asked about this idea over the weekend. well, that is a strategy decision that is being negotiated. we we are open to a way to reach the finish line. reporter: the problem with that strategy, however, is that democrats only have one chance to use the fast-track process known as reconciliation, which would enable them to pass bills with only 51 votes in the senate. and so, that essentially means they need republican buy-in to pass these stand-alone bills and it is just not clear there s much, if at all, any appetite in the gop to help advance
progressives starting to call on president joe biden to use executive action to address priorities, like climate change and prescription drug prices. but again, there are drawbacks and limits to that, as well. biden can do only do so much with his pen and anything he does accomplish with executive action could always be overturned by a future republican president. so not a lot of good option hearse for democrats but they are holding out hope they can notch some sliktryes at least on a smaller scale in the new year. poppy. let s talk to one of them about that. melanie, thank you very much. out front now, democratic congressman of new york. he is the deputy whip of the congressional progressive caucus. good evening, thank you for being here. and look, you have warned against allowing the senate to gut build back better to appease one or two senators. are you open to breaking up this legislation into pieces? not at this point, poppy. i think that this is a signature bill that it it
even if it s to move individual pieces of this proposal, they will have to ultimately get joe manchin on board. 50/50 senate, if they go through the process to avoid a republican filibuster, that means they cannot afford a single democratic defection, no matter what the proposal ultimately looks like here, so democrats on the hill, victor, are trying to say we re going to get something done. we re still going to push to get this done. what it looks like, can they get it done, can they get it done in a timely fashion, all of which leaves democrats essentially conceding that certainly the big bill won t get done. will any bill get done. that is the big question as they have promised so much to the voters, will they come up with anything, be completely empty handed by next november. that s a big question. they at least say they have the infrastructure bill to point to that they pass, as well as the covid relief package, the covid safety net package, that could be done for the rest of this