0 we hope this sends a message to others sending those threats out there that those words have consequences. thank you for joining us. don't forget, watch "out front" on cnn go. "ac 360" starts now. two big stories breaking tonight. the question of kids and covid vaccines. namely, whether to grant emergency use authorization for children under 12. that's what an fda panel is discussing. today, the talk was contentious. one panel member is counseling caution. he joins us tonight along with our own dr. sanjay gupta. the other story is a deal on infrastructure and what to make of it. $578 billion in new money over spending and no tax hike to pay for it. it's the product of a bipartisan group of senate negotiators. because of how fragile bipartisan anything can be in washington, there's reason to be skeptical about what happens next. joining us now, cnn chief political correspondent dana bash. i understand you have details on the senators involved. what kind of compromise they reached and how big it is. >> we don't have the actual paper, so to speak, of the details of this bill -- of this deal. the fact that we do have that statement, john, from five democrats and five republicans saying full stop they have a deal -- i know the bar is low in washington, but that is a big deal. why that is a big deal is, because we don't see and hear a lot of bipartisanship these days. but also because what i was told early on that the senators were modelling the process and the strategy on was what the covid process was, the covid relief package at the end of 2020, when that -- the republican leadership if particular in the senate didn't want it. they forced mitch mcconnell's hand and said, we have enough senators on both sides of the aisle. it's very noteworthy. i'm told the senators are on a text chain. they have been communicating. the democrat who has been taking the lead on this in that group is not joe manchin, who has gotten most of the attention, but sinema, who is under fire from progressives as a roadblock to their agenda. she has been working along with the others in this group, the four other democrats, really hard to not be a roadblock, to come up with a compromise. there's skepticism. we have to wait and see what the democratic leadership, what the republican leadership say. five and five in this environment on this issue is a pretty big deal. >> it is. you need ten republicans in this case, correct? >> mm-hmm. yep. you need ten. that is really one of the key questions is whether or not they can get ten more. i mean, five more. they can get up to ten. i was told there are a lot of active discussions, particularly among the republicans and even with some of their like-minded democratic friends, that they could get there. it's not done yet. a lot of people are saying, hold on, we're not going to sign anything until they see the details, until they see pen to paper, never mind what we see in the public. that is a possibility. a big question is going to be, never mind the republicans, what the president of the united states says. >> on that point -- >> we know there's a new statement -- >> i have that statement.things. i'm paraphrasing. it appreciates the work of the senators. number two, it says it has questions. questions need to be addressed about the policy and the pay force. in other words, everything. they have a lot of questions about what's in the details. ed third e third thing, we want talk to other members as well. the white house wants to reach out to other democrats and take their temperature here. what do you make of that? >> it's not no which is something. what i also make of it is that if you look at the environment that president biden is in right now, he needs a w on the board. although he very much cares about the specifics, cares about the content, cares about the policy, if there is a deal to be made here that he would almost certainly call a down payment while the democratic budget chair, bernie sanders, his new good friend and partner works on the other things like, for example, let's get specific here, more help for childcare, more help for elderly care, some of the things that republicans say is a non-starter. the other thing i want to say is the caution that i am told to have on this in terms of the details is the so-called pay force. republicans and democrats who are working on this say that this deal has no new tax increases. the question is, how are they going to pay for it? >> gotta find out the details. we need the number. we need more information. they have a deal, big news tonight. thanks so much for your reporting. we will let you get back to work. more on where democrats stand on the key question of how not to do what democrats often do so well, namely, tie things into knots. joining us, james carville. you have one group of democrats, these five, says we have a bipartisan deal. you have another group of democrats saying they are fed up with trying to reach compromise with republicans. how do you square that circle? >> well, first of all, you are talking about the pay force. you could raise somewhere between three-quarters of a trillion dollars and a trillion and a half. we could pay for a lot with enforcement. every democrat can rally around that idea. the truth of the matter is, we don't have the votes. you have to get to 60 votes. people get frustrated about that. there's nothing that can be done about it. these people are trying to work to cobble something together. it's not exactly what i would want. but it's a start. you can't finish a journey until you start a journey. i would also make the other point, most important thing in my mind is 2022. we can win the senate. we can pick up three, four senate seats if you look at the map. if we hold the house, we can do things that a lot of democrats want to get done. we can't do it with a 50/50 senate and a four-vote margin in the house. you can't do it. these people can't count. >> to that point, alexandria ocasio-cortez, she said she's sick of playing patty cake with republicans. other senators say the same thing. when you hear that, what goes through your mind? >> what goes through my mind is a lot of the people that are critic criticizing, there's no chance they will lose to a republican. that's not the case with sinema, that's not the case with manchin, that's not the case with a lot of people. if we want to expand our margins, we have to do it somewhere else other than the bronx. we will win that. the political people have to live in real life. we had two encouraging elections. new mexico, we are supposed to be doing well. we ran ahead of biden. we had a tough can't didate tha talked about drcrime. we got a lot of good democrats elected in virginia and won some primaries. the news is encouraging. if we go off the deep end, the same is going to happen to us that happened in 2020. no one is playing patty cakes here. we didn't pick up near as many senate seats as we hoped to and we lost house seats. >> are you suggesting that alexandria ocasio-cortez, that they are out of touch? >> i don't know if they are out of touch. they need to do the math. we don't have that many votes. we can't -- we're not playing patty cake. we have a 50/50. it's very difficult. there's a filibuster. i'm a political guy. i can count. if you want to change that, there's a way that you can do it. that is do what you can, build up the president's approval rating, pick up three more senate seats, pick up six or seven house seats. then a lot of the things that you are talking about, you are going to be able to do. having a discussion when we have the majority. i don't see it happening. i'm sure they are nice people and well meaning and very good progressive people and everything. somebody has to get a calculator. we just don't have the votes. >> how much do you trust republicans? >> we have to navigate the best we can. >> how much do you trust republicans to be -- to be truthful negotiators? >> i don't trust them very much, to be honest with you. if we look like we're trying and they look like they're lying, then we are going to do good in 2022. what the public wants is to try something. if we try it and we look like the people that were trying hard to do something and not the people that pulled out and were being unreasonable, that's going to cause us to pick up senate and house seats. then we can do things that people are talking about. we can't do it under the current alignment that we have in the congress of the united states. that's just a fact. i wish people would realize this and give the president some operating space here. he has some good things on the table. he has done some good things. i think he will be in a position to do more. it might not be as fast. >> you did an interview recently which got a lot of attention. you said, wthis is a problem an everyone knows it. most of the democrats agree. what do you mean? you know the pushback. >> first of all, somebody is out of step because our vote -- [ no audio ] [ no audio ] [ no audio ] [ no audio ]