West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin will not change his mind just because you keep asking him the same question.
On Sunday, the Democratic senator was asked again if he’ll support President Joe Biden’s monstrous $3.5 trillion infrastructure plan. Manchin has already answered this question. Multiple times. He is a “no.” The senator even wrote an opinion article for the Wall Street Journal titled “Why I Won’t Support Spending Another $3.5 Trillion.”
Manchin has been clear about this. Yet, on Sunday, members of the press again asked if he’ll support the White House’s proposal.
NBC News’s Chuck Todd went first, pressing Manchin to respond to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who said of those who’ve balked at the bill’s price tag, “Where would you cut? Childcare, family medical leave paid for, universal pre-K, home healthcare, so important?”
“First of all,” the senator responded, “everything that the speaker … has mentioned, I have been for and voted for. We spent $5.4 trillion. And a lot of that really continues way into next year. We haven’t dispersed it all.”
He added, “Only thing I’ve said, put a pause on. Shouldn’t we basically put a pause on with all the unknowns that we have right now we’re facing? Don’t know where COVID’s going to go. Inflation is still very high and rampant. And then on top of that, the geopolitical unrest that we have going on, we might be challenged there. Don’t you think we ought to be prepared for that since we don’t have the emergency that we had with the American Rescue Plan, when the president first came in and we passed?”
The U.S. Senate is split 50-50 between Democrats and Republicans, with Vice President Kamala Harris serving as the tiebreaker. If Manchin is a “no,” then the infrastructure bill is dead in the water.
“Let me ask you this though,” the Meet the Press anchor continued, searching for a different answer. “This is long-term infrastructure that, in some ways, you know, they call it human infrastructure. Social reforms, and however you want to look at it. People have different names. They take investment. This isn’t short-term. And it wants to be paid for. And if it’s paid for, there shouldn’t be an inflation problem.”
Manchin responded, “And the only thing I have said, there’s not a rush to do that right now. We don’t have an urgency. Don’t you think we ought to debate a little bit more, talk about it, and see what we’ve got out there?”
Todd apparently saw a glimmer of hope in this response.
“So you’re not against this?” he asked. “You could support this $3.5 trillion plan?”
Stated Manchin, “No. I cannot support $3.5 trillion, OK? No, OK?”
“It is not a time issue?” asked Todd, refusing to take “no” for an answer. “It really is a cost issue?”
Manchin said, “It’s going to be a lot more than $3.5 trillion over eight or ten years because it’ll continue. All these programs will never come off. They don’t even score it out that far.”
At CNN, Manchin had the exact same conversation. It must be like Groundhog Day for this man.
Will Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer have your vote, asked CNN’s Dana Bash.
“He will not have my vote on $3.5,” the West Virginia senator reiterated for the umpteenth time. “And Chuck knows that. And we have talked about this. We have already put out $5.4 trillion. And we have tried to help Americans in every way we possibly can. And a lot of the help that we put out there is still there, and it’s going to run clear until next year, 2022.”
“What’s the urgency?” he added. “Don’t you think we ought to hit the pause and find out? … We don’t know about inflation, we know it’s running rampant right now, I can tell you in West Virginia inflation is running rampant, and on top of that, the challenges we’re going to have, geopolitical challenges, shouldn’t we be prepared?”
Bash asked, “Are you saying it’s the price tag, it’s the timeline? Both?”
“It’s the urgency. Do we have the urgency to do what they’re wanting to do in such a quick period of time?” asked the senator.
It’s worth noting that many of the journalists who keep asking Manchin if he’ll support the infrastructure bill, ignoring the fact that he has already answered this question, are the same ones who keep asking him if he supports abolishing the filibuster, to which he always answers “no.”
At some point, when you ask the same lawmaker the same question 20-plus times, it’s no longer idle or professional curiosity. It’s advocacy.
