White House touts ‘progress’ in meeting with Manchin, Sinema

The White House is touting progress in negotiations with Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) over President Biden’s economic agenda after a meeting late Tuesday, with officials expected to meet with both senators again on Wednesday.

Biden met with Manchin and Sinema at the White House on Tuesday in the latest bid to get both moderate Democrats on board with a massive spending package that contains many of the president’s domestic agenda priorities.

“The three made progress on top of what has been accomplished in recent days and look forward to next steps so that we can equip Americans for high-paying jobs, deliver historic investments to make health care and child care more affordable for American families, and take on climate change,” a White House official said of the meeting, without specifying any concrete agreements.

White House officials are expected to meet with both senators at the Capitol on Wednesday, and some Democrats remain optimistic a framework agreement is possible by the end of the week.

Sinema and Manchin have been the two main holdouts on key aspects of Democrats’ plan, which is expected to include funding for climate programs, health care initiatives, education efforts and more.

“I think we’ll get a framework,” Manchin predicted on Tuesday, warning that “the devil is in the details.”

Meanwhile, House progressives are holding out support on a bipartisan infrastructure bill that’s already passed the Senate until there is an agreement on the spending package, which is likely to be significantly smaller than the $3.5 trillion that was originally proposed.

Biden has stressed there is no hard and fast deadline to get a deal, but officials have expressed some hope to come to an agreement before the president leaves for Europe on Thursday.