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The chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus on the difficulty of negotiating with Joe Manchin, and a “two-track strategy” for moving forward.
In response to Manchin’s announcement, Representative Pramila Jayapal, the chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus and one of Build Back Better’s most fervent advocates, said in a statement that the senator had “betrayed his commitment not only to the President and Democrats in Congress but most importantly, to the American people.” Jayapal also stated on Monday that progressives had already made many concessions by agreeing to significantly cut down Build Back Better’s price tag, and would look to President Biden to accomplish the bill’s objectives through executive action. I spoke with Jayapal by phone on Tuesday. Our conversation, edited for length and clarity, is below.
Where does Build Back Better stand now?
I don’t think we know. I think that we have been negotiating in good faith all these months with Senator Manchin, and Senator Manchin made a commitment to the President, the President made a commitment to us, and that did not happen. Senator Manchin has a different characterization, but the reality is that we don’t know what the next steps are. We’re pushing very hard for it to pass the Senate in the most robust form possible. But, honestly, I think we can’t rely just on Build Back Better, and that’s why we’re taking a two-track strategy to do everything we can to move it legislatively, and to call on the President to take a number of executive actions that are going to lower costs, which many families are dealing with right now, as the child-tax-credit check does not go out in January, and help people deal with the health-care crisis of the Omicron surge.
At this point, why not put together a bill that meets all of Manchin’s specific demands and then just try to pass it? And, if he votes it down, then everyone can see that. What’s the downside of that approach?
Well, the downside is: What are his demands? I mean, the frameworks that he agreed to were his demands. That’s what he agreed to. [Manchin never publicly agreed to the framework Biden put forth at the end of October, though he did tweet,“President Biden’s framework is the product of months of negotiations and input from all members of the Democratic Party who share a common goal to deliver for the American people.” In a statement following Manchin’s announcement, on Sunday, the White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, criticized the senator’s “inexplicable reversal” as a “breach of his commitments” to the President. The senator declined to comment through a spokesperson.]
Didn’t he say he wanted a bill without an extension of the child tax credit, and to choose fewer long-term programs over many short-term measures, and that it not be above $1.8 trillion?
Well, the bill that was the framework was $1.75 trillion, and he agreed to it. So my only point is, sure, we can try to do that, but we’re negotiating with somebody who changes his mind constantly. So I don’t know why people think that if we go down this track—and we have to, because we don’t have another choice—that we’re going to be able to depend on what he says today. Just in my conversation with him, there were a number of different messages, some contradictory.
What were those messages?
I’m not going to go into it, but I’ll just say that there were different things that he was saying at different times. It makes it very difficult to come to an agreement. I think that, since the President negotiated the framework with Senator Manchin and got the commitment from him to support that framework, the President’s going to have to go back and come to some agreement and move it very quickly before he can change his mind again. But I think it’s just difficult to negotiate with somebody who changes their mind all the time.
Absolutely, but am I correct that he’s been fairly consistent on something below two trillion dollars, something without a child tax credit, and a bill without temporary programs, but, instead, one that would fund fewer programs and fund them permanently?
Well, it’s not correct, compared to the framework he committed to. That was the commitment that Senator Manchin made to the President, to support that framework. It only had a year of the child tax credit, because he didn’t want to do more. It was under two trillion dollars, and it had all these various programs that were not for the full ten years. So I just want people to understand that when we talk about “Well, let’s see what he wants to do,” that was what we did already.
What does committing to the framework mean? Because my sense is that he released some statements saying that he wanted to work on the bill, but it was clear that the Senate bill would not look much like the bill that passed the House. Is that accurate?
No, I don’t think so. I think ninety per cent of the bill that passed the House was the framework. If you look at the framework, it was quite detailed. And that was something that the Progressive Caucus had pushed for. I said to the President, “Make sure that it’s got all the parameters in it, because when something goes from a framework to a text, it becomes very difficult.” People say, “Oh, well, that’s not what I agreed to.” And that’s always the problem with a framework. But it wasn’t just a top-line number; it actually went through in detail what the different pieces were—it had a one-year tax credit, it had child care and pre-K at four hundred billion, and it articulated exactly how that was going to be rolled out.
And what about how the bill was paid for?
That was in there as well. But what Senator Manchin wanted was actually what we wanted, which was a robust corporate tax. And that was something that Senator [Kyrsten] Sinema did not agree to. So the pieces that were cobbled together in the framework, which both Manchin and Sinema were a part of negotiating and both agreed to, actually had a whole host of other tax provisions to pay for it. [Like Manchin, Sinema did not publicly commit to voting for the bill. The senator did not respond to a request for comment.]
Look, the thing about these senators is that they each act like they’re the only ones. Senator Manchin wanted certain tax provisions that Senator Sinema didn’t want. And so the ultimate framework was a compromise position that got both of them on board, and the Progressive Caucus endorsed that framework because we thought it was the final negotiation that was done in good faith.
How do you think the President has dealt with this?
I think the White House made a mistake in splitting the two bills apart, and I think that’s where a lot of this started. We split them apart, and we allowed the negotiations to be all around the infrastructure bill with really no attention to eighty-five per cent of the President’s agenda in the Build Back Better Act. I think that, when the Senate passed infrastructure without a commitment, I think that was probably at the White House’s urging, but I don’t think that should have happened, either. I think they should have kept them together and gotten a commitment at that point.
And then, when it came to the House, I think that the President then began to engage in earnest with the negotiation. From that point, he did a very good job on negotiating and getting Senator Manchin to agree to that framework. So I think it’s been mixed, but I think, on the negotiation of Build Back Better, he did a very good job, and I think it’s a job that only he in a way could really do. And the fact that Senator Manchin committed to that framework was a testament to the President’s ability to get him there.
It seems like most of the big things in these different versions of Build Back Better could not be done through executive action. We saw the Supreme Court even recently knock down the eviction moratorium. Do you think more of the bill can be done through executive action than people realize?
I think there are quite a few things that will deliver immediate relief for people, especially with Omicron surging. I think a lot of the moratoriums that were knocked down were in part because the virus was in a different stage, but we are now back at a place where about seventy-five per cent of new cases are from Omicron and businesses are shutting down, sports teams are cancelling games, Broadway’s shutting down. I think we could move forward with pieces that are going to cut costs for American families and put some money back into their pocketbooks at a time when there is tremendous economic and health uncertainty.
I think that there are other pieces that we will not be able to do by executive action, but I think that pursuing a two-track strategy is really important. We already know that people are suffering, and we want them to be able to feel the difference very quickly. And, even if we had passed Build Back Better before Christmas, it was going to be a big push to make sure that people could get the benefit of it this year. And so, if we want people to feel immediate relief, we’re going to have to take some executive actions to shore up anything that we might be able to pass legislatively.
But there are significant things that the Administration could do to say, “Look, if you don’t do legislation, then we’ll have to do things by executive action, and you may not like those things because you won’t have control over them.” So cutting fossil-fuel subsidies or putting a price on EpiPens and insulin—trying to do some of those things administratively could be possible. And it might also help pressure people to say, “Look, it is better to do the legislative path because at least we have some control over that.”
When you look back over the year and appraise it: What leverage does anyone have over Joe Manchin?
Look, I think it’s the same leverage that you have over any individual in a very narrow majority. Presumably he wants Democrats to succeed. I mean, recognizing that he comes from a state that Trump won by a lot, and recognizing that he is obviously a different part of the Democratic spectrum than I am, presumably he wants the President to succeed and he wants Democrats to succeed. And I think that is a big part of the leverage—the impact that his actions could have on the Presidency and on the Democratic Party.
And you believe that, as someone who knows him and talks to him—that he does want Joe Biden and the Democratic Party to succeed?
I think so. I thought more so before. Now I’m questioning that, to be frank, but I think so. I think he has a lot of respect for the President. I do think he had a long relationship with the President, and I do think relationships are important. I think the President is pretty much the only person who is going to be able to convince him to do what he needs to do.
The last piece of leverage, which I do think is very important, is that you were hearing now from West Virginians saying to Senator Manchin, “We disagree with you. West Virginia does need Build Back Better. We do want Build Back Better. Please reconsider.” I thought the statement from the mine workers’ union president, Cecil Roberts, was really important. And I know that there are moms and families who have been trying to meet with him around things like the child tax credit and child care. More West Virginians are saying, “Wait a second, you’re saying we don’t want it and it’s not good for us. That’s not true.” I think that is also a very important leverage point.
But we both know that Joe Manchin is to the left of the median voter in West Virginia, right? This is a state that Trump won by nearly forty points. The reason Joe Manchin can win in West Virginia is that Joe Manchin doesn’t vote like most Democrats.
It is, there’s no question about it. But you were asking me what points of leverage there are. I started with the Democratic Party and the President, but I didn’t want to leave out that constituents also do matter, and a constituency like the mine workers is one that he cares very deeply about. He talks about the mine workers all the time. Is that enough? I really think at the end of the day it’s about whether Joe Manchin wants the President to succeed and wants the Democratic Party to succeed. That’s probably where there’s the most leverage.
What message should progressive lawmakers be sending to progressive constituents? All these things in the bill are so important, but you don’t want to get to a place where a $1.8-trillion piece of social spending, the biggest in a generation, passes and people view it as a disappointment.
I see it the way you do. And I think that we have to get it passed. That’s the challenge. Since we got the infrastructure bill passed—even though it wasn’t everything we wanted, and even though there were things in it that we didn’t like—we’ve been out selling it. But the problem is when we don’t have something, and that’s where we are right now. I don’t think it’s going to be a problem selling a $1.8-trillion investment to the American people. I don’t know when it’s going to happen, so it’s difficult for me to tell you exactly how we’re going to sell it, but let’s assume that it has universal pre-K and universal child care and affordable-health-care subsidies and Medicaid expansion and climate. Each of those is a significant investment. I have no question we’ll be able to sell it. We need to get it done. And that’s the thing, because this has stretched on for so long. That’s what we need to focus on right now: getting something done, through executive action and through legislation. Then we can sell it. I’m not worried about that.
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