Our live coverage has ended for the day. Read more on the negotiations here.
House Republicans who were previously planning to support the $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill are now rethinking their votes after President Biden’s visit to the Hill today, saying it’s clear that the bill is linked to reconciliation, according to GOP sources.
Bacon said he is now rethinking his vote and has talked to several GOP colleagues during the last vote series who either have already switched from “yes” to “no” in their minds or are considering it.
Bacon, a member of the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus, also said he talked to a moderate House Democrat who is furious with Speaker Nancy Pelosi for not keeping her promise to hold the infrastructure vote this week.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi wrote in a Dear Colleague letter to fellow members that “more time is needed” as negotiations over a sweeping economic package and a separate bipartisan infrastructure bill continue.
“Our Chairs are still working for clarity and consensus. Clearly, the Bipartisan Infrastructure bill will pass once we have agreement on the reconciliation bill,” Pelosi added.
She also mentioned President Biden’s visit to the Democratic Caucus, writing that Biden “honored us with his first in-person visit to our Caucus.”
“He received a hero’s welcome! His presentation on the values of the Biden vision was warmly and enthusiastically received. We look forward to a successful enactment of the Build Back Better Act and Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill,” Pelosi wrote.
Earlier, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said the vote extending highway funding would be the last vote before the House recesses.
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer told CNN that the chamber was done for the night, and no additional votes were expected after consideration of a separate stopgap bill to extend highway funding.
“I’m going home,” he said.
Some background: President Biden visited Capitol Hill Friday afternoon, meeting with members of the House Democratic Caucus as Democratic leaders and White House officials labored to strike a deal on the economic framework that they hope can unlock enough votes for infrastructure.
The comments from the President may have relieved some of the deadline pressure on Democrats to swiftly strike a deal and resolve the impasse, but were just as likely an acknowledgment of the reality that a deal is not expected to be reached immediately given the number of sticking points that remain.
Two sources familiar with ongoing talks told CNN earlier Friday that a deal on the so-called framework of the economic package wasn’t finished or imminent at the current moment.
Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar characterized the ongoing stalemate between Democrats over two spending proposals as “democracy in action” and expressed confidence lawmakers could eventually hammer out a deal.
“I think that this is democracy in action,” the Minnesota lawmaker said tonight as Democratic leadership continued to work late into the evening to hammer out an agreement between moderates and progressives to allow a massive bipartisan infrastructure package to move forward.
Klobuchar cited her experience working closely with Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin on a voting rights bill, suggesting she believed he was capable of negotiating in good faith.
“I’m just a little more optimistic than some people because I’ve been in those Senate rooms,” she said. “I’ve been with Joe Manchin when we negotiated the voting bill, just eight of us. I saw him, in good faith, put ideas out there.”
President Biden and his senior aides have been in the Oval Office since returning from Capitol Hill, a White House official said.
Biden and his team have been debriefing his meeting with House Democrats and discussing next steps in the legislative negotiations, the official said.
White House officials feel like Biden accomplished what he went to do on Capitol Hill: reminding Democrats of what is at stake while also relieving some of the pressure that had built up over the last several days and reiterating his commitment to passing both pieces of legislation.
With that done, officials believe negotiators have a better environment to be able to push towards a deal.
After President Biden met with House Democrats, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said the President was “passionate” about passing both bills.
When asked about potential vote timing, Hoyer said, “we’re going to go talk about that right now,” adding that he was headed to a leadership meeting.
When asked if he felt there would be an infrastructure vote today, Hoyer said, “could be.”
As they left the meeting with Biden, several lawmakers said the President informed them that the top-line number where they are likely to find agreement is somewhere between $1.9 trillion and around $2 trillion.
Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar of Texas said that was the range that Biden told the group and asked them to find common ground within that number.
Rep. Tom Malinowski, a Democrat from New Jersey, said that while progressives were successful in holding off the vote this week, everyone acknowledged that the figure was not going to be as high $3.5 trillion if they are going to get the bill passed.
Meanwhile, as progressive lawmakers filed into their own meeting at the Capitol, staffers collected their phones.
Rep. Pramila Jayapal, a Democrat from Washington state, told reporters Friday that progressive Democrats were going to have to shrink the $3.5 trillion social policy and climate package in their negotiations with moderate Democrats.
“It’s going be tough,” she said.
Jayapal, the chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said Biden was “very clear” that the package and the bipartisan infrastructure bill are “tied together.” Jayapal said that in order to get the infrastructure bill passed, there needs to be an agreement on the so-called Build Back Better plan.
“There was no timetable,” she added.
Jayapal said the House would not vote on the bipartisan infrastructure tonight or this weekend.
After leaving the progressive caucus meeting, Reps. Veronica Escobar and Sylvia Garcia said negotiations about an acceptable top line for the larger Democratic bill were ongoing and that they believed the House would take up a stopgap funding measure for surface transportation today before pausing negotiations on infrastructure over the weekend.
After Biden’s visit today, Escobar said she believed they would pass the surface transportation bill and pause negotiations between moderates and progressives for the week.
“The negotiation at any time has to be both parties, you know, kind of talking about the same thing and right now I don’t think we are,” Garcia added.
When asked how she felt after today’s meeting with Biden, Escobar replied, “Optimistic and inspired, like I feel renewed and energized.”
Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland left an ongoing meeting with House Progressives and said the group is optimistic about the path forward.
Raskin said 98% of Democrats are united in their desire to pass both bills.
He acknowledged that he and his fellow progressives will have to find ways to trim the $3.5 trillion package in a way that meets most of their goals.
Raskin also said they are not worried that it is taking too long to get the agenda passed.
“I think that the momentum for the legislation is building, we have the attention of the country and people are starting to pay attention to what’s inside the President’s plan and that’s what’s so extraordinary here. This is a landmark moment, to be able to make these massive investments in Pre-K, massive investments in daycare for working families, massive investments in community colleges across the country – and to pay for it by increasing taxes on big corporations that have been getting a free ride for just too long,” he said.
New Hampshire Rep. Annie Kuster said the House will likely pass a bill extending highway funding for 30 days to prevent programs from lapsing, and give the negotiators more time to strike a deal on the Build Back Better plan.
Democrats had hoped to pass the bipartisan infrastructure bill, which included highway funding, before surface transportation authority expired Sept. 30.
Democratic Rep. Mike Quigley emphasized that President Biden was not trying to change minds at his closed-door meeting with lawmakers, as much as remind folks what is at stake.
Quigley told CNN that the President said if members are too dug in they risk getting nothing.
He added that Biden offered to take questions, but the caucus indicated he shouldn’t because Quigley said the caucus knows itself.
President Biden had brief remarks this afternoon following a meeting on the Hill with the House Democratic Caucus regarding the ongoing negotiations on his major economic package.
The high-stakes visit to the Hill by the President comes as some Democrats have been calling for Biden to play a more active role in the negotiation process.
Watch here:
With just one month to go until a pivotal UN climate change conference in Glasgow, President Biden’s climate agenda is on the line.
The fate of Biden’s ambitious climate promises is wrapped up in a large budget bill that’s stalling in Congress, as moderates and progressives in Biden’s own party disagree on what’s needed.
These negotiations are happening at a critical time: in April, Biden promised the US would slash its carbon emissions in half below 2005 levels by the end of the decade, and the clock is ticking.
For months, Biden’s climate envoy John Kerry has been traveling the world, pressuring other countries to raise their climate ambitions and decarbonize faster. That won’t carry any weight unless the US does the same, lawmakers say.
A White House spokesperson told CNN that tackling climate change is a “top priority” for Biden, and the administration “is using all the tools in our tool chest to solve it. Full stop.”
The White House will release a national climate strategy later this year, an administration official confirmed.
Biden’s top domestic climate adviser Gina McCarthy “believes that’s a viable path, and I’ve expressed my view that without the investments, particularly the tax code support for clean power and clean transportation, I think it’s really tough to get there,” Center for American Progress founder and Obama climate adviser John Podesta told CNN.
If the White House does have a Plan B to meet their climate goals if reconciliation fails, Democratic lawmakers haven’t seen it – and they’re skeptical it can actually be done. Several Democratic lawmakers told CNN they haven’t been briefed on how the White House could slash US emissions without major investment in clean energy by Congress.
President Biden was greeted by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer and House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn before heading to the House Democratic Caucus meeting.
Biden did not respond to shouted questions from CNN on whether he was hopeful Democrats would reach a deal today.
The meeting is closed to press. No cell phones will be permitted in an effort to limit leaks.
President Biden is on Capitol Hill to meet with House Democrats as congressional Democratic leaders scramble to secure a last-minute deal on a major economic package and find a way to resolve divisions between moderates and progressives that have put passage of the package and a separate bipartisan infrastructure bill in jeopardy.
Biden is currently scheduled to meet with House Democrats at 3:30 p.m. ET, according to a source familiar with his plans. No cell phones will be permitted in an effort to limit leaks.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters Friday that he will travel to the Hill “to make the case for his legislative agenda, which includes the infrastructure bill, and it includes his Built Back Better agenda that would be in the reconciliation package.
The President “wants to speak directly to members, answer their questions, and make the case for why we should all work together to give the American people more breathing room,” she said.
The high-stakes visit to the Hill by the President comes as some Democrats have been calling for Biden to play a more active role in the process.
Democratic Rep. Steve Cohen of Tennessee said on Friday, “I think the President should be involved,” and said “very few of us have seen the President in nine months he’s been President. And I think he should come to a caucus.”
Read more about today’s meeting here.
The White House defended President Biden in his last-ditch effort to appeal to House Democrats to come together, amid criticism that he got involved in discussions on his agenda too late in the game.
CNN previously reported Rep. Pramila Jayapal, the head of the progressive caucus, told reporters she would have preferred that Biden got involved “sooner.”
“We’re clearly at the late stages of the process here. This is exactly the moment where people put their bottom lines down, they put their best ideas forward, and there’s heavy negotiating and that’s exactly what’s happening. And that’s why timelines can help make progress,” she continued.
President Biden will travel to Capitol Hill shortly “to make the case for his legislative agenda, which includes the infrastructure bill, and it includes his Built Back Better agenda that would be in the reconciliation package,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters Friday.
The President “wants to speak directly to members, answer their questions, and make the case for why we should all work together to give the American people more breathing room,” she said.
When asked if the President expects to leave Capitol Hill today with a consensus on voting today for the administration’s infrastructure bill, Psaki declined to make a prediction.
More on Biden’s meeting: The President is expected to address members of the House Democratic Caucus in a closed-press meeting at 3:30 p.m. ET today, as progressives have vowed to withhold a vote on the infrastructure package until the Senate moves forward on the President’s spending package.
“He’s visiting the Democratic Caucus, and as you all know, and as the Speaker’s office will confirm for all of you, they make those rules we don’t make those rules and those are closed press meetings,” Psaki added, “But obviously, there’ll be a press pool with him. In terms of whether he’ll address the public or speak to all of you—we’ll see, we’re quite open, and he is—we’ll make decisions hour by hour.”
As President Biden heads to Capitol Hill to lobby House Democrats this afternoon, he may lean on strategic ambiguity to bridge the gap between the party’s moderate and progressive factions. That’s possible because of different ways of accounting for different elements of any final plan.
One question, for example, is whether or not tax-cuts get classified as “spending.” All week negotiators have been working on a potential compromise that involves more than $2 trillion worth of initiatives but less than $2 trillion in “net outlays” after accounting for spending and tax cuts.
This could resemble the different ways of describing the Trump tax cuts. The Congressional Budget Office calculated they would increase the budget deficit by $1.9 trillion over 10 years, which became how their magnitude was most commonly described in Washington debates.
That 2017 legislation cut various individual and corporate tax collections much more than that, but a large portion of those cuts was offset by revenue raised from other changes in the tax code.
While infrastructure negotiations continue on Capitol Hill, another major issue looms: the debt ceiling. US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has said the US government will run out of money Oct.18, when it will hit the borrowing ceiling set by Congress.
Senior White House officials explored whether the US could unilaterally continue payments should the debt ceiling be breached in mid-October but ultimately concluded it would not be possible to avoid default and economic catastrophe, a person with direct knowledge of the matter told CNN.
The conclusion came as part of a review, first reported by the Washington Post, of potential options the administration may have as the US barrels toward an Oct. 18 debt ceiling deadline with no clear idea of how Congress will reconcile how to avoid the first default in US history.
White House officials conducted the review as diligence to map out or test the viability any potential contingencies or theories as Republicans have continued to block Democratic efforts to suspend the debt limit, the person said. Among the theories explored, but dismissed as unworkable either due to legal, political or economic hang ups, was whether there were constitutional grounds to continue payments, as well as the idea of minting a trillion dollar coin, the person said.
The review itself is not out of the ordinary. During the Obama administration, officials reviewed whether alternatives were available to congressional action to raise the debt ceiling during high stakes showdowns between Democrats and Republicans. They ultimately concluded alternatives would not be viable.
The White House has concluded the same.
It’s a reality that only serves to underscore the heightened risk facing financial markets and the US economy in this moment.
Senate Republicans have blocked all Democratic efforts to move forward on a debt ceiling suspension up this point, pressing Democrats to move through the budget reconciliation process to get the job done. The process itself is likely to take at least two weeks, creating an increased level of urgency for lawmakers as the calendar moves toward the deadline
Yet Sen. Mitch McConnell staked out an unyielding position of opposition in July and, driven by a combination of not wanting to give GOP votes to the increase and embracing the ability to slow or create chaos at the same time Democrats are straining to pass their domestic agenda, has received unified back up from the members of his conference.
Democrats have tried multiple avenues to force McConnell to yield, though up to this point have not broken through. Another vote on a stand-alone suspension of the debt limit, which the House passed this week, is scheduled for next week.
Read more here.
House Democratic Caucus Chair Hakeem Jeffries told reporters today that he believes the bipartisan infrastructure bill will pass today, and that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has committed to holding the vote.
Asked how this was possible, since there is still no agreement on the larger bill that progressives are holding out for, Jeffries was optimistic that they would hear about further progress from the Senate negotiators soon.
“I’m hopeful that we’ll get some clarity within the next hour or so from the Senate, as it relates to what they view as possible, so we can decide what is acceptable,” he told reporters.
The Senate passed a massive, $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill in August and now the House needs to vote on it before it goes to President Biden’s desk to be signed into law.
The path to get to a final vote still remains uncertain. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Democratic leaders are working to build support and get enough votes for the bill as progressives threaten to tank it they don’t strike a deal with moderates on a separate sweeping spending package.
Here’s what the infrastructure bill would fund:
Read more about what is in the bill here.
