![]() “And we have been clear that the President and Senator Manchin are longtime friends who share important values about standing up for middle class families.” “President Biden and senior White House staff have been in regular touch with Senator Manchin, but we do not detail private conversations,” White House spokesperson Andrew Bates said in a statement. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) arrives to chair the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee at the Capitol in Washington, Tuesday, Sept. And some people close to Biden note the times that the president and senior officials in the West Wing have praised their relationship with the enigmatic West Virginia lawmaker.Īs for Manchin himself, word has filtered through the West Wing that aides need to hold their fire on any attacks. White House aides are sticking to a blanket policy against talking about the negotiations over the legislation, a directive established early this year after the senator detonated a previous version of the bill over complaints too much of the back-and-forth was playing out in public. Yet even as congressional Democrats heaped criticism on Manchin - with some pushing for him to be stripped of his Energy and Natural Resources Committee gavel - the White House is resisting the temptation to make its anger known publicly.īiden threw his support behind Manchin’s new demand for a package consisting of provisions to lower the cost of prescription drug prices and a two-year extension of enhanced Obamacare subsidies, saying he wanted it passed before the August recess. “He’s just a game player and a bad actor.” “Manchin is ridiculous,” said one Democratic operative close to Hill leadership, who requested anonymity to describe the sentiment at the party’s highest levels. ![]() The president has told confidants that while he understands Manchin represents a deep-red state, he can’t fathom why he keeps torpedoing the party’s best-laid plans. And after bending to the senator’s demands, only to now twice watch him blow up negotiations in spectacular fashion, even Biden has expressed puzzlement.
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