The Playbook Podcast

It’s died a million deaths before. Today might be the latest — albeit, perhaps not the last.

Sen. Joe Manchin pretty much ensured defeat of the bipartisan infrastructure deal known as BIF, if the House votes on it at all today.

While Manchin signaled he’d support a more modest reconciliation package to roll back the GOP’s 2017 tax cut, that does nothing for Democrats demanding a vote today — or for those vowing to tank it absent a deal. Asked Wednesday night if she intends to pull the vote, Speaker Nancy Pelosi reiterated that “the plan is to bring the bill to the floor.” Is she worried she doesn’t have the votes? “One hour at a time,” she said.

Here are the scenarios we could see play out today, from most to least likely.

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Raghu Manavalan is the host of POLITICO's Playbook.
Jenny Ament is the senior producer for POLITICO Audio. 
Irene Noguchi is the executive producer of POLITICO Audio.

Tuesday was the day it became clear either:

A) President Joe Biden's legislative agenda is about to implode

or

B) Biden made serious progress toward a deal to salvage his agenda.

The public evidence points to option A. By the end of the day, there was no indication Democrats were near a deal that would allow BIF to pass the House on Thursday. But the real action was shrouded in secrecy: the talks between Biden and the two senators who control the fate of his presidency, Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema. So you can’t rule out option B. 

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Raghu Manavalan is the host of POLITICO's Playbook.
Jenny Ament is the senior producer for POLITICO Audio. 
Irene Noguchi is the executive producer of POLITICO Audio.

The Democrats’ “two-track” process is no more. After weeks of linking passage of the $1.2 trillion infrastructure package (BIF) to the party’s larger reconciliation bill, Speaker Nancy Pelosi told her members Monday night that she’s forging ahead with a stand-alone vote on BIF as the much larger social spending bill is being hashed out.  

It’s a reversal by not only Pelosi but Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and President Joe Biden. Their previous position was that one should not — indeed, cannot — pass without the other.

This sets up a major showdown between Pelosi and the Squad, as well as other members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. CPC Chair Pramila Jayapal has been saying her members will tank the Thursday vote if the Senate doesn’t pass the larger multitrillion-dollar reconciliation bill first.

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Raghu Manavalan is the host of POLITICO's Playbook.
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Irene Noguchi is the executive producer of POLITICO Audio.

Congress is three days out from a critical vote on a key plank of the president’s agenda — a massive $1.2 trillion infrastructure package (BIF) — and President Joe Biden and House Democratic leaders haven’t even started the whipping process, we’re told from sources across the Democratic spectrum.

Our colleagues Natasha Korecki and Laura Barrón-López reported Sunday night that the president was making calls and doing Zoom sessions from Camp David over the weekend on BIF and the larger reconciliation package. But the seeming lack of urgency so far — given the sheer scale of the task and mere days to complete it — is alarming some House Democrats going into a critical week, multiple people involved told us Sunday night.

“I don’t understand why the president isn’t whipping his own historic bill,” said one moderate House Democrat.

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Raghu Manavalan is the host of POLITICO's Playbook.
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Buckle up. That was the advice from Capitol Hill late Thursday night as news got out that Speaker Nancy Pelosi privately told her committee chairs that she does, in fact, intend to bring the reconciliation bill to the floor next week, reports Heather Caygle.

The question now: Is it bravura or bravado?

And, The Arizona Republic scooped the results of the Maricopa County “audit” paid for by “Stop the Steal” and Donald Trump allies: It found that Trump lost the key county by a wider margin than the official election results. To put a finer point on this: The firm selected by the people promoting the election lie, Cyber Ninjas, did its own count and found that Joe Biden won.

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Raghu Manavalan is the host of POLITICO's Playbook.
Jenny Ament is the senior producer for POLITICO Audio. 
Irene Noguchi is the executive producer of POLITICO Audio.

Here’s the most important development that came from President Joe Biden's five hours of meetings with 23 legislators in the Oval Office on Wednesday, according to a senior White House official: “Moderates agreed that they need to coalesce around an offer to the liberals.”

It might not sound like much. But given how dug in both sides have been, the White House views the commitment from the Manch-ema wing as “a real breakthrough.”

And, the killing of 20-year-old Army soldier Vanessa Guillen, who had told family she was being sexually harassed by several soldiers prior to her disappearance at Fort Hood last year, has galvanized calls to change how the military deals with sexual assault and harassment. 

Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand and Joni Ernst, a veteran and a sexual assault survivor, have long pushed Congress to act on the issue. Join Playbook's Rachael Bade today at 1 p.m. for a Women Rule virtual joint interview with Ernst and Gillibrand to discuss the state of their proposed legislation and what it will take to curb sexual assault and sexual harassment in the military. Register here

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Raghu Manavalan is the host of POLITICO's Playbook.
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Can the House get to 218 on the BIF?

That’s the big question on Capitol Hill after Speaker Nancy Pelosi made clear Tuesday her team would not delay a Monday vote on the bipartisan infrastructure bill, aka the BIF. Here’s what we’re watching as Pelosi’s whipping operation gets underway for what promises to be a close vote.

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Raghu Manavalan is the host of POLITICO's Playbook.
Jenny Ament is the senior producer for POLITICO Audio. 
Irene Noguchi is the executive producer of POLITICO Audio.

Internal Democratic discord has wounded President Joe Biden’s massive social spending plan, raising the prospect that the package could stall out, shrink dramatically — or even fail altogether.

Myriad problems have arisen. Moderate Senate Democrats Joe Manchin (W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (Ariz.) continue to be a major headache for party leadership’s $3.5 trillion target. The Senate parliamentarian just nixed the party’s years long push to enact broad immigration reform. House members may tank the prescription drugs overhaul the party has run on for years. And a fight continues to brew over Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (I-Vt.) push to expand Medicare.

And today, Biden interrupts his mission to rescue his agenda in Congress with a mission to rescue his agenda with world leaders.

He’ll speak at 10 a.m. before the U.N. General Assembly to an audience far more skeptical about his insistence that “America is back” than they were in the afterglow of Donald Trumps loss, which was (mostly) celebrated around the world. 

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Raghu Manavalan is the host of POLITICO's Playbook.
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Sen. Kyrsten Sinema delivered a tough message to President Joe Biden at a private meeting Wednesday, we’re told: If the House delays its scheduled Sept. 27 vote on the bipartisan infrastructure plan — or if the vote fails — she won’t be backing a reconciliation bill.

Sinema is not the only moderate taking this stand. Rep. Kurt Schrader — one of approximately 10 moderate Democratic House members playing hardball with leadership — said he and several members of their group are on the same page. Some of the lawmakers have conveyed that message up the chain to leadership and the White House. A senior Democratic aide confirmed the warnings.  

“If they delay the vote — or it goes down — then I think you can kiss reconciliation goodbye,” Schrader told Playbook. “Reconciliation would be dead.” 

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Raghu Manavalan is the host of POLITICO's Playbook.
Jenny Ament is the senior producer for POLITICO Audio. 
Irene Noguchi is the executive producer of POLITICO Audio.