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Democrat Joe Manchin deals death blow to Joe Biden’s Build Back Better bill
West Virginia senator drops bomb in TV interview, enraging Democratic left and earning White House rebuke
♦By Rich Shumate, ChickenFriedPolitics.com editor
WASHINGTON (CFP) – For more than five months, the political class, and the chattering class, in Washington have been obsessed with one question: Will West Virginia Democratic U.S. Senator Joe Manchin support President Joe Biden’s ambitious $2 trillion Build Back Better plan, or won’t he?
In one of the year’s most dramatic political interviews, Manchin gave his final answer Sunday morning.
West Virginia Democratic U.S. Senator Joe Manchin announces decision on Build Back Better on Fox News Sunday
Joe’s a no. And with every Republican in the Senate also opposed, his no – if he doesn’t change his mind – deals a death blow to the bill in the evenly divided chamber.
“If I can’t go home and explain it to the people of West Virginia, I can’t vote for it,” Manchin said on Fox News Sunday. “And I cannot vote to continue with this piece of legislation. I just can’t.”
Moderator Brett Baier, who appeared to be taken aback by Manchin’s bombshell, asked, “This is a no?”
“This is no,” Manchin quietly repeated.
Watch Manchin’s full interview on Fox News Sunday
His announcement came at the end of a tense week of negotiations over Build Back Better before senators left town for their Christmas break. Manchin had been the subject of intense media attention and pressure from colleagues and the White House, prompting the usually amiable lawmaker to lose his temper at one point and shout an explicative at a reporter.
Politico reported that just before he was about to go on the air Sunday, Manchin dispatched an aide to the White House to let administration officials know what was about to happen – and then rebuffed a phone call to try to get him to change his mind.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki then released a statement with extraordinarily strong language aimed at a senator from the president’s own party.
“Senator Manchin’s comments this morning on Fox are at odds with his discussions this week with the President, with White House staff, and with his own public utterances,” Psaki said. “They represent a sudden and inexplicable reversal in his position, and a breach of his commitments to the President and the Senator’s colleagues in the House and Senate.”
Manchin explained that his decision was driven by concerns about inflation, the federal debt, and the looming specter that the COVID-19 omicron variant will extend the duration and severity of the pandemic.
He also complained that Democrats pushing the bill were trying to disguise the full, eventual cost of the total package by artificially phasing out provisions after short periods of time, rather than funding a smaller, more affordable package of priorities for a 10-year period.
“That’s not being genuine with my constituents in West Virginia,” he said, pointing to a Congressional Budget Office estimate that fully funding all of the priorities in the bill for 10 years would cost $4.5 trillion.
But those explanations fell flat with many of his Democratic colleagues, who erupted at the news of his decision.
“I think he’s going to have a lot of explaining to do to the people of West Virginia, to tell them why he doesn’t have the guts to take on the drug companies to lower the costs of prescription drugs, why he is not prepared to expand home health care” said Vermont U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders in an interview on CNN’s State of the Union.
U.S. Rep. Pramila Jayapal of Washington, chair of the House Progressive Caucus, said Manchin “has betrayed his commitment not only to the President and Democrats in Congress but most importantly, to the American people.”
“He routinely touts that he is a man of his word, but he can no longer say that. West Virginians, and the country, see clearly who he is,” Jayapal said in a statement posted on Twitter.
Texas U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett likened Manchin to the Grinch who “just stole Christmas for many and don’t expect any last minute Dr. Seuss happy ending.”
“After 6 months of talking and talking, Joe Manchin finally made it unequivocal … he’s with the Republicans,” Doggett said in a Tweet. “What an outrage!”
Lawmakers on the Democratic left who style themselves as “Progressives” were particularly irked because they reluctantly agreed to go along with a bipartisan infrastructure bill that Manchin supported in exchange for a promise from Biden to push Build Back Better through the Senate.
However, New York U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez — who refused to go along with that bargain — tweeted out an I-told-you-so after Manchin’s appearance on Fox.
“People can be mad at Manchin all they want, but we knew he would do this months ago,” she tweeted. “Where we need answers from are the leaders who promised a path on [Build Back Better] if [infrastructure] passed: Biden & Dem leaders … So they need to fix it.”
Sanders said he wants the Senate to vote on Build Back Better, even if it fails, saying if Manchin “doesn’t have the courage to do the right thing for the working families of West Virginia and America, let him vote no in front of the whole world.”
However, Manchin told Baier that he has no problem with a Senate vote on the bill – which he will oppose.
“I’ve tried everything humanly possible,” he said. “I can’t get there.”
Manchin’s no is unlikely to harm him politically in West Virginia. Even though the state has many economically disadvantaged residents who would benefit from Biden’s social spending, it is also deeply conservative, handing Biden a 39-point loss in 2020.
Manchin, who is 74, is also not up for re-election until 2024 and has been non-committal on whether he’ll run again.
However, Manchin’s increasingly bitter dispute with members of his own party is likely to heighten speculation that he might change parties (which he has dismissed) or leave the Democrats to become independent, which he had previously offered to do if he became a “problem” for his caucus.
A party switch would flip control of the Senate to Republicans, which could also happen if he left to become an independent but caucused with the GOP.
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Joe Biden sweeps to another victory in Florida Democratic presidential primary
Biden has now gone 10-for-10 in Southern primaries; Trump clinches GOP nomination
♦By Rich Shumate, ChickenFriedPolitics.com editor
MIAMI (CFP) — Former Vice President Joe Biden easily vanquished his last major Democratic rival, U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, in Florida’s Democratic presidential primary Tuesday, in a race overshadowed by the coronavirus pandemic.
Biden took 62 percent of the vote, sweeping every one of the state’s 67 counties. Sanders took just 23 percent.
Meanwhile, President Donald Trump’s victory in the state’s Republican primary, against minor opposition, put him across the delegate threshold to clinch his party’s 2020 nomination. The president changed his residency to Florida earlier last year.
Florida election officials opted to proceed with Tuesday’s primary despite the national coronavirus shutdown. The run-up to election day was subdued, with neither Democratic candidate holding any rallies or campaign events. Trump has also called a halt to rallies with his supporters.
Biden speaks via video after Florida win
Biden’s win in Florida was wide and deep, taking his string of Southern victories to 10. His delegate margin over Sanders from the Sunshine State alone was more than 80 delegates.
The closest Sanders came to Biden was in Alachua County, home to the University of Florida. where Biden won by 11 points. But Sanders was pummeled in the heavily Democratic counties in South Florida, failing to clear 20 percent of the vote in either Broward or Palm Beach counties and getting just 22 percent in Miami-Dade.
Despite the concerns about coronavirus, the total turnout of Democratic voters was 1.7 million, about the same as it was in 2016, when Sanders took 33 percent of the vote in a race against Hillary Clinton. However, Florida makes extensive use of early voting that was less impacted by the pandemic.
Sanders, who was in Washington as the Senate considers emergency legislation to deal with the pandemic, did not make any public appearance after the vote.
With traditional election night celebrations canceled, Biden had to make do with a web video shot in his home in Wilmington, Delaware.
“We’ve moved closer to securing the Democratic Party’s nomination for president, and we’re doing it by building a broad coalition that we need to win in November,” Biden said.
As he did when he swept through the primaries a week ago, Biden also out an olive branch to Sanders and his supporters.
“Senator Sanders and I may disagree on tactics, but we share a common vision,” he said. “Our goal as a campaign, and my goal as a candidate for president, is to unify this party and then unify the nation.”
Four Southern states have yet to vote in the presidential race — Georgia, Louisiana, Kentucky, and West Virginia.
Georgia’s primary, scheduled from March 24, has been moved to May 19; Louisiana’s has been moved from April 4 to June 20; and Kentucky’s has been moved from May 19 to June 23. West Virginia’s primary is still scheduled for May 12.
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Joe Biden crushes Bernie Sanders in Mississippi
Magnolia State’s large African American population gives former vice president his biggest win of the campaign season
♦By Rich Shumate, ChickenFriedPolitics.com editor
JACKSON, Mississippi (CFP) — Former Vice President Joe Biden crushed Vermont U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders in Mississippi’s Democratic presidential primary Tuesday, extending his string of victories across the South to nine.
Biden won 81 percent of the vote; Sanders came in at just under 15 percent, below the threshold needed to win statewide delegates.
Biden’s 66-point margin was the biggest winning margin so far for Biden in any state, eclipsing his 47-point victory in neighboring Alabama.
The former vice president has now gone nine-for-nine in Southern primaries, with Florida and Georgia on tap next.
Joe Biden addresses supporters after Mississippi win (From Fox News via YouTube)
As in the rest of the South, Biden’s win was due to a strong performance among African American voters, who made up two-thirds of the Democratic electorate in Mississippi.
Exit polls showed that Biden was the choice of 87 percent of black voters, compared to 10 percent for Sanders.
Speaking to his campaign staff in Philadelphia after a public rally in Ohio was canceled over concerns about coronavirus, Biden called the success of his campaign “a comeback for the soul of this nation.”
“Tonight, we are a step closer to restoring decency, dignity and honor to the White House,” Biden said.
He also praised Sanders and his supporters for bringing “energy” to the party and made a plea for unity.
“We share a common goal, and together, we’ll defeat Donald Trump,” Biden said.
Sanders’s defeat is the latest in a long string of Southern setbacks, stretching back to his 2016 run against Hillary Clinton. In 2016, he won in just two Southern states; this time around, he hasn’t won any.
Sanders did not make a public appearance after Tuesday’s results. His campaign also canceled a planned rally in Cleveland.
Florida, on tap next week, is the second biggest prize in the South after Texas, with 219 delegates up for grabs. Recent public polling shows Biden with a wide lead over Sanders in the Sunshine State, where his past comments about Israel and embrace of socialism have gone down less than well with Jewish and immigrant voters, both key voting blocks.
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Mississippi Democrats vote Tuesday in 2020 White House race
The Magnolia State’s demographics favor Joe Biden, although no public polling has been done
♦By Rich Shumate, ChickenFriedPolitics.com
JACKSON, Mississippi (CFP) — Mississippi Democrats will weigh in Tuesday on what has now become a two-man race between former Vice President Joe Biden and Vermont U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders, with the state’s large African American population pointing toward a Biden win.
Mississippi is the only Southern state holding a primary on Tuesday, and it comes a week after Biden swept seven Southern states, including neighboring Arkansas and Tennessee. Other states holding primaries or caucuses Tuesday include Idaho, Michigan, Missouri, North Dakota and Washington.
Polls will be open in Mississippi from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. CT.
Sanders and Biden compete in Mississippi
Biden’s previous wins across the South have been based on rolling up large margins over Sanders among African American voters, and Mississippi has the nation’s largest black voting age population, at 37 percent. In 2016, Hillary Clinton crushed Sanders in the Magnolia State by 66 points.
Although no public polling has been done in Mississippi, the candidates’ schedules may point to how the campaigns feel about the state of the race.
Sanders canceled a planned visit on Friday to campaign in Michigan, while Biden was in Jackson Sunday to speak to the congregation of New Hope Baptist Church, where he was introduced by the state’s lone African American congressman, U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson, who endorsed the former vice president earlier in the week.
“If I’m the comeback kid, there is only one reason — the African American community all around the country,” Biden said.
Republicans will also hold a primary Tuesday, with President Donald Trump facing only token opposition.
After Mississippi, the next Southern stop on the primary calendar is Florida on March 17, followed by Georgia on March 24.
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Former Vice President Joe Biden rolls across the South in Super Tuesday primaries
Biden wins all 7 Southern states; Mike Bloomberg drops out after failing to break through in his campaign debut
♦By Rich Shumate, ChickenFriedPolitics.com editor
(CFP) — Former Vice President Joe Biden rolled to wins in all seven Southern Super Tuesday primaries, cementing his status as the new front-runner in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination and handing a string of defeats to Vermont U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders and former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg
Tuesday’s triumphs across the South — including the biggest prize, Texas — marked a remarkable four-day swing by the Biden campaign, fueled by a stronger-than-expected win on Saturday in South Carolina that prompted three other candidates to exit the race, two of whom then endorsed Biden.
In the wake of the Super Tuesday results, Bloomberg, too, exited the race and endorsed Biden.
Speaking to jubilant supporters in Los Angeles as the scope of his victories became clear, Biden noted that “just a few days ago, the press and the pundits had declared this campaign dead.”
“We were told, well, when it got to Super Tuesday, it would be over. Well, it may be over — for the other guy,” he said.
Biden won Alabama, North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, Oklahoma and Arkansas by double digits. He won by more than 40 points in Alabama, where a majority of the Democratic voters were African American, and by 30 points in Virginia, buoyed both by a strong result among black voters and in the suburban counties around Washington, D.C.
His margin over Sanders was much smaller in Texas, at 4 percent.
In the race to pile up delegates, the size of Biden’s victories in the South allowed him to build a 130-plus margin over Sanders and overtake him as the delegate leader nationwide.
Bloomberg, making his campaign debut after skipping South Carolina and three other early states, came in a distant third in all of the Southern states except Virginia, where he finished fourth. He won just 21 delegates.
On election night, Bloomberg had sounded a note of optimism, saying the results showed his late-starting campaign was viable. But by Wednesday morning, he announced that he had concluded he had no viable path to the nomination and endorsed Biden.
The Super Tuesday results continue a tale of woe for Sanders in the South, where he was buried by Hillary Clinton in 2016.
Oklahoma was one of only two Southern states Sanders won in 2016, along with West Virginia, but this time around, Biden beat him in the Sooner State by 13 points. And as in 2016, Biden’s won across the region by beating Sanders by large margins among African American voters.
Sanders used his election night speech to supporters in his home state of Vermont to exude confidence — and to draw a contrast between what he described as his “movement” for fundamental change and the status quo represented by the former vice president.
“We’re going to win because the people understand it is our campaign, our movement, which is best positioned to defeat Trump,” he said. “You cannot defeat Trump with the same old, same old kind of politics. What we need is a new kind of politics that brings working class people into our political movement, which brings young people into our political movement.”
The next Southern stop on the presidential campaign trail is Mississippi, which votes March 10, followed by Florida on March 17 and Georgia on March 24.
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