The White House is spinning President Joe Biden’s dig at two centrist Democratic senators by contending he was instead offering commentary on TV political punditry.
Biden complained on Tuesday that his legislative agenda was being blocked in Congress because of the narrow Democratic majorities in the House and Senate, including “two members of the Senate who vote more with my Republican friends.”
But White House press secretary Jen Psaki insisted that Biden’s remarks, interpreted as a veiled swipe at Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, were actually about simplified made-for-TV political discussions.
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“TV isn’t always made for complex conversations about policymaking,” she told reporters Wednesday. “He considers them both friends, he considers him both good working partners, and he also believes that in democracy, we don’t have to see eye to eye on every detail of every single issue in order to work together.”
But the president’s remark caused much eyebrow-raising because Manchin and Sinema have voted with him 100% of the time on major bills, according to vote data compiled by FiveThirtyEight.
The response to questions related to Biden’s statements conflicts with Democratic criticism concerning former President Donald Trump’s preoccupation with cable news and ratings.
Biden swung at Manchin and Sinema during his visit to Tulsa, Oklahoma, marking 100 years since the 1921 massacre toward black people who lived in the city.
“I hear all the folks on TV saying why doesn’t Biden get this done? Well, because Biden only has a majority of effectively four votes in the House and a tie in the Senate, with two members of the Senate who vote more with my Republican friends,” the president said Tuesday.
Manchin and Sinema are two critical votes for Biden in the evenly divided Senate, but an analysis reveals that the two senators have supported the president and their party on major pieces of legislation that have reached the chamber’s floor. Yet, most bills require 60 votes to pass the Senate. Both Manchin and Sinema do not back nixing the filibuster rules.
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“His view on the filibuster continues to be that there should be a path forward for Democrats and Republicans to be easier to move forward on progress for the American people,” Psaki said of Biden on Wednesday.
