Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy that the president and his staff are imbeciles, but it’s still hard to imagine why they would participate in such an act of self-sabotage. All Manchin asked for was to not be singled out in a statement about the negotiations. That was understandable given the protests that were occurring, some of which RedState reported on at the time.
"President Joe Biden’s tenuous relationship with Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) is making news again after an inside report has exposed just how out of control the White House is.
"Back in December of 2021, negotiations over a massive reconciliation bill between Biden and Manchin were nearing completion. According to The Washington Post, Manchin had already agreed to a $1.8 trillion topline, which is notably a lot more than the spending cap he was committed to publicly. In the grand scheme of things, Biden and his progressive allies were on course to get most of what they wanted.
"Then an act of defiance set everything on fire.
And then, incredibly, it all fell apart.
The statement drafted by White House aides two days later named Manchin as the focus of negotiations. White House aides sent a draft of the statement to Manchin’s office ahead of its release. Manchin’s chief of staff responded by asking the White House legislative director either to remove the senator’s name, or to add Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.).
The White House issued the statement anyway. The president had personally signed off on it. But Manchin exploded, texting a senior Biden aide that the decision was “unconscionable and extremely dangerous” at a time when liberal activists were targeting Manchin’s family with protests.
Three days later, Manchin declared his opposition to the legislation on Fox News. The negotiations never recovered, and Build Back Better — encompassing years of Democratic policy aspirations to reduce child poverty, transform the nation’s housing system, enact new early education programs, tax the rich, and more — was effectively dead.
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