Biden Is Beating Mitch McConnell At His Own Game On Infrastructure

Last updated on July 18th, 2023 at 01:31 pm

President Biden knows that Mitch McConnell won’t agree to an infrastructure deal, but the negotiations are all about keeping Democrats on board to pass the bill alone.

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Sahil Kapur reported on MSNBC:

He has to negotiate with Republicans, he believes, Democrats believe in order to convince the centrist holdouts in the Senate. And also, the house, which doesn’t get quite as much attention, they want to pursue bipartisanship as well. They want to go home and say they did everything they could. The key thing to know is when president Biden is negotiating with Sen. Caputo, he’s really negotiating with Mitch McConnell. There are not ten Republican votes unless you get Mitch McConnell’s signoff for anything major.

He can potentially come to an agreement on a number or something like that, but translating that to actual legislation to get ten Republican votes is a much more complicated task. The White House‘s challenge here is to figure out whether to cut a deal with Republicans. At best, he can probably get a small deal that falls far short of his target and try to do something separately with Democrats or maybe do the whole thing alone he thinks that could undercut the big package.

If Biden wants to keep all the Senate Democrats in line to vote for his infrastructure bill, he needs to negotiate with Republicans first.

The tables have turned. For years, Mitch McConnell has used negotiations to stall, delay, and make political points with no intention of passing legislation. President Biden is using McConnell’s tactics in his favor to keep himself in a position to pass a massive infrastructure and jobs bill without Republican support.

President Biden would love a bipartisan bill, but he isn’t going to settle for less to get it.

Biden is using McConnell’s negotiations against him to make sure that his infrastructure bill eventually passes in Congress.

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Jason Easley

Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.

Awards and  Professional Memberships

Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association