The feeling inside the White House is that the Sen. Joe Manchin burned time and good faith efforts. But they also believe they still need him.
But as President Joe Biden and his advisers sift through the rubble of their domestic agenda and salvage the remains, this time they’re trying their hardest not to show it.
“Manchin is ridiculous,” said one Democratic operative close to Hill leadership, who requested anonymity to describe the sentiment at the party’s highest levels. “He’s just a game player and a bad actor.” White House aides are sticking to a blanket policy against talking about the negotiations over the legislation, a directive established early this year after the senator detonated a previous version of the bill over complaints too much of the back-and-forth was playing out in public. And some people close to Biden note the times that the president and senior officials in the West Wing have praised their relationship with the enigmatic West Virginia lawmaker.
It’s a restraint rooted less out of a desire to play nice than the recognition of political reality: The last time they took a whack at Manchin, it backfired spectacularly, causing a months-long break in negotiations around a pared down plan. Beyond that, no matter how the administration feels about the lawmaker, they’re going to need his vote in a 50-50 Senate over and over and over again.
There is also some hope — unlikely as they recognize it to be — that Manchin may reconsider jettisoning the climate portions of the bill. A person close to Manchin said it wasn’t unfeasible that he could. Were it not for the bigger legislative packages previously dangled in front of Democrats over the last year, Biden allies argued, the shrunken bill would be viewed as a historic success rather than a consolation prize.
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