Briahna Joy Gray, the former press secretary for Sen. Bernie Sanders’s (I-Vt.) 2020 presidential campaign, called out progressive lawmakers on Wednesday saying they have essentially been “covering for the failures” of President Biden’s administration on the $15 minimum wage effort.
Gray told Hill.TV’s “Rising” that she wants more transparency from progressive lawmakers about why the $15 minimum wage did not make it in the $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief bill, saying Democrats treated the Senate parliamentarian ruling as an “insurmountable” obstacle.
“If I had my druthers, I would like the progressives in Congress to be a lot more clear and honest about what’s going on there,” Gray said. “Because as it is, they are effectively, whether or not they are intending to, covering for the failures of the Biden administration and maintaining the fiction of ‘Oh, we can try again down the line.’”
“Without getting rid of the filibuster, there’s really nothing that’s going to change,” she added. “And this was really the best shot at getting a much-needed, sorely, sorely needed policy that really could have helped the long-term standing of the Democratic Party and made the prospect of the upcoming midterms a lot less dire.”
The minimum wage provision was ultimately not included in the American Rescue Plan after the Senate parliamentarian ruled that that such a move would not work under special budget rules to prevent a filibuster.
After the ruling, the White House said Biden was “disappointed” but vowed to respect the ruling, despite progressive calls for the administration to overrule it.
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